What does it look like to be caught in transition and learn how to move forward? Author of the new book Do Over, Jon Acuff, spoke with us about this process and how church leaders can help people through such a season of life.
What was the impetus behind this latest project?
I had a massive do-over in my own life from a career perspective. I had been in corporate America for 15 years, had a big career transition, and started to think through how we manage transitions. So I wrote the book because I needed the book and then I went around the country and met with people in Seattle, San Diego, Nashville, Austin, and Pennsylvania to see if they were going through transitions too. That question inspired the book—how do you navigate change?
I wrote the book because I needed the book and then I went around the country and met with people … they were going through transitions too.
The further you go in your career, you begin to realize that life is about seasons. It seems Do Over is about helping people navigate change from one season to another.
I think the older you get you do realize that there are seasons you go through. The four seasons include hitting a ceiling and getting stuck somewhere, being caught by a rogue wave, or having what I call a jump moment where you you move to a new city. That last one is when you get an unexpected opportunity, something you didn’t see coming. But they are seasonal. It’s not about avoiding one or trying to live completely in one, you’re going to go through a lot of different transitions. I love when people tell me their five-year or ten-year plan for their lives. I think that’s adorable. Those plans never happen in the career world. It is much more about having the tools to navigate whatever the change may be, but knowing that you are going to constantly be going through change. I think that’s one of the myths that hurt a lot of people, that think they are going to find the perfect job. I don’t believe in perfect jobs. I don’t believe there is a job you will spend every hour only doing the things you find most delightful. I don’t even think that’d be good for you.
Seems technology is driving a changing workforce, where people are much more mobile in their careers than a generation ago.
I was in Silicon Valley speaking to Microsoft and I was talking to someone who said, “Well … I had longevity at my last job,” and I asked “How long were you actually at your last job?” He answered, “One year.”
That’s considered longevity. I’ve read where 18 months is the average length of a tech career, and then it is normal to move somewhere else. It’s also true that technology changes the work dynamic. I met a schoolteacher in Crested Butte, Colorado—in the middle of nowhere. She said for the first time ever, she had five new kids in her kindergarten class. I asked, “Why is this happening?” She said that it’s because people don’t have to be tied down geographically to a job. So for years, beach towns and mountain towns stayed small because a lot of people wanted to live there but there was no work. Now, those cities are changing because people can work from anywhere and that’s a transition.
I love when people tell me their five-year or ten-year plan for their lives. I think that’s adorable. Those plans never happen in the career world.
What kind of advice would you give to Christians about discerning their calling? How should pastors and Christian leaders encourage them?
The one thing I always say is that I don’t believe in the soul mate version of finding your calling. We have this myth that there’s one perfect job out there, like there’s only one perfect person you can marry and they live in Argentina and if you don’t get there you’ll never find love. First I try to tell college students that they’re going to do a lot of different things. I also try to help them understand that their first job won’t be the dream job. Your first job will teach you how to have a job. I try to let them know it is going to be a process. Then I try to get them to pay attention. The challenge is we are going to be working for 40 to 60 hours a week and very few of us stop once a week and spend an hour thinking Okay, let me look back at this week and let me see what went well, what didn’t go well, how I could do it better? Or very few of us will say, “I’m going to spend three hours today figuring out how I can have a great month next month at my job, or what I could do better.” We’ve bought into this idea that a job is just a job and so I try to get them to be more present to what they are actually doing so they can see it and tweak it and do beta-testing and get better at it. But you have to be present to do that.
How has your book been received by older people facing transitions and military members who are transitioning back into civilian life?
The person who bought the most copies of Do Over, was a military lawyer. We had coffee and talked through some of these things. He said, “Jon, it’s a huge transition. It’s a transition to enter the military but it’s a transition to leave it too,” so he gives out copies of Do Over to people going through that transition. It’s been fun for me to see the wide range of ages that this book reaches. I will have people that are fifty purchase books. I met a teacher the other day who has been teaching for thirty years. He said that he was in this do over moment and that he didn’t have the right skills. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and say “Go! You have a ton of skills, you just have to do the work of figuring out what they are and that’s the skill side of this book.” What I truly find interesting is when a college student will buy two copies, one for them and one for their dad. They’ll say “I need this, and I know it’s a different market but my dad needs this because I see who he really is and he doesn’t see it yet. And he’s in a great position to do something awesome and I want to give him a tool.”
How can pastors and church leaders help people navigate transitions in this new economy?
As far as Christian leaders go, I think we can do a better job understanding that career transitions are a big part of what people are going through. Some pastors will say “I wish I knew where to reach people. Well you’ve got them for 90 minutes a week, I am where they are 40 to 60 hours a week. So I think the church needs to create spaces for people who are going to have these conversations. We need to help people see their work as worship. Work is not just something we get through so that you can then reach people in ministry places. Work is about worshipping God and reaching people where we are.
It’s a lot harder to actually love and serve the people that are messy and real in your own life. I remember there was a time I was writing a book and I thought, “God use this book to bless people.” I felt like he said, “Hey, Heather is people. That woman you have a hard time with at work, she’s people. I’ve surrounded you with people, so stop praying for fictional people that you one day want to help and turn around; there’s a room full of people that you work with every day, those are people I’ve give you already. Stop asking.”
Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.
