Finding Your Calling During “The Great Resignation”

While some doors are closing, others are opening

How many times have you heard someone say “I hate my job?” Before the pandemic, it was simply a reality of life that many employees hated their jobs and that most employers had to deal with workers who really didn’t want to be there. But Covid-19 forced us to look at our work/life balance differently than ever before, and decide what matters most to each of us.

Inspirational stories abound in the media right now about people who quit jobs they hated and moved on, such as the tale of a husband and wife who quit selling insurance, and turned their love of the outdoors into a new opportunity with a landscaping company. The couple are happy to be doing something they love, and the employer is happy to have employees who love what they do. The trend toward leaving an unwanted job for meaningful work, the “Great Resignation”, has been framed as a catastrophe for business, but can just as easily be a win-win for both employees and employers.

The “Great Resignation” is term recently coined by Anthony Klotz, a Texas A&M University associate management professor, during an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. The term describes the prediction that, among those who kept their jobs during the pandemic, approximately 25–40% will quit now that things are settling down. The Wall Street Journal has confirmed the trend that has some employees starting over rather than returning to 9–5 work they didn’t enjoy. But navigating the new work world can be challenging.

Where to start? The best advice I ever received about finding a dream job is to ask yourself what you would do if you didn’t have to work for a living. What interests you so much you would do it for free? For me, I’ve been writing since I seven, and haven’t stopped since. I do it every day, whether I’m being paid or not. My late father, an aeronautics engineer, used to draw up plans for a nonexistent dam just for fun, complete with parapet wall and spillway. Engineering was part of who he was. Something is part of who you are. Find it.

How to find the job you love? When you find what you love and what you’re good at, you’ll also see there are opportunities to turn your interest into a way to make money, such as…