I was recently loaned a copy of David Whyte’s book Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity, and was struck by a passage on how the interests, passions, and intuitions of our childhood can function as keys to unlocking our most meaningful work as adults:
To a child, the world is a beckoning horizon, and as Wordsworth said, The Child is Father of the Man (and we might add today, mother of the woman). Whatever particular horizons drew us as a child are the original patterns and templates of our adult belonging. They are clues as to how we find our measure of happiness and satisfaction in the world.
[…]
To betray these childhood intuitions is to betray our adult participation in the world, which has been formed from the clay of those early experiences and recognitions.
Whyte goes on to share a couple stories about visiting with his nephew who loves nothing more than driving around with his uncle and a truck full of washing machines to be delivered and serviced. His nephew’s joy provides a clue for him, even at 12 years of age, that his future happiness in the world of work will likely involve the satisfaction of making physical things fit correctly and putting broken things back together. White also reflects on his experiences visiting Boeing where the love of flight and things that fly were affections that began in many an engineer’s mind at a very young age.
The anecdotes cement the idea that what fired our childhood imagination is very often a clue to how we’ll find happiness and satisfaction in our work as adults.
Excavating Your Roots
These early childhood intuitions are part of your root system, the BE part of our DoKnowBe Tree. It’s that foundational part of you that encompasses your beliefs, values, passions, gifts and voids, and wiring. (You can watch Rodger Price teach a great session on the DoKnowBe Tree here.)
I suspect that many of us can look back at our youth and immediately call to mind a persistent fascination or interest. (No, I’m not talking about the standard dinosaur phase or horse phase that it seems every child is going to go through–those are great, but probably not that instructive.) For example:
- What began as a love of blocks, legos, and marbleworks, blossomed into a building your own furniture
- Your imaginary doctor’s office turned into an interest in anatomy, biology, and a compassion for those with illness or injury
- A love of lists and numbers games, and grew into an interest in investing and the stock market
If you struggle to see any connection between your present day work, and your childhood interest, you may be able to get at these early experiences by doing a peaks and valleys type exercise. A simple X/Y axis with age running along the horizontal axis and highs and lows representing the Y axis can allow you to plot out your life in memory from birth to present day while looking for through-lines of joy, purpose, happiness that recur from your youth.
Finding Satisfaction in Your Work
It’s fair to ask if it even matters what we were enamored with and fascinated by as children. I’m convinced that it can matter a lot if and when we find ourselves mis-aligned with those early intuitions and patterns.
Even if you are well aligned in your present work–you find deep satisfaction in the challenge and reward of it– it can be valuable to know why the work is fitted to you so that you’re developing the self-awareness to confidently say yes or no to new opportunities as they arise.
As we talked about recently on this blog, this is the process of listening to your life in order to develop discernment. That discernment can be about decision making for your company or team, but it can also be about helping you to discover the best fit for yourself.
Closing the Gap Between Childhood Intuitions and Daily Work
But what if we have forgotten? Or find our original dreams and memories painful compared to our present life, and therefore, too difficult to bring to mind? – David Whyte
I appreciate Whyte’s honesty in raising this question. The reality for many of us is that we’ve lost connection (to some degree) with those early intuitions, and it may take effort to bring the experiences and memories to mind, and to better align our daily work with that which brings us the most satisfaction and meaning.
This is a place where one-on-one coaching can really help by providing a sounding board and a guide on the journey because, whether you recognize it or not, it’s likely that any gap that exists between your daily work and your childhood intuitions is a source of friction and frustration for you. I think of this as the difference you feel in your body when you’re leading from your unique design and engaged in work that matters to you, compared to the feeling of muddling along with someone else’s leadership playbook, with your enthusiasm and creativity disengaged from the process.
Our adult work represents such an enormous portion of our lives and attention that we all want to find meaning and satisfaction in it. Narrowing the gap between what still fires your imagination and the work you do is a worthy goal, and key to both longevity and happiness in your vocation. Thankfully, closing any gap that exists is possible.
How About You?
Are there childhood passions or intuitions that you see as strongly connected to your present work? Do you perceive a gap between your present work and the satisfaction of working on those early passions and interests? If so, what do you see as your next step to close that gap?
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