Observe someone who seems completely obsessed with their work, who seems to be “called” to tirelessly pursue their passion, and you just might become a little envious. “Gee, I wish I had such a powerful calling.” “A powerful calling would make things so much easier!”

It turns out, however, that “calling” is a misnomer in that it actually comes from within, more than it comes from without. I’m not referring to religion or faith; I’ll leave those complex subjects to you. What I’m referring to is the ability to infuse your work with a sense of enthusiasm and meaning, each and every day.

And that—what many mistake as some sort of supernatural calling—is actually the result of direct actions you can take, starting right now.

Martin Seligman, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former president of the American Psychological Association. He is also the author of some twenty books including the New York Times best-sellers Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness.

In the latter book, Seligman (always backing up his theory with decades of research) breaks virtually all of the strengths we might possess into twenty-four “signature strengths.” You can find these at his Website, www.authentichappiness.org. In fact, you can take a variety of tests there, but the one I’m specifically referring to is the VIA Survey of Character Strengths. The results of the 10-minute test will be a list—in order—of your 24 “Signature Strengths.” (While Selgiman avoids this language, I would be very tempted to see the bottom few as, well, weaknesses.)

Now, here’s the power of Seligman’s research. Virtually all of these strengths have their advocates. Everyone from the Boy Scouts to major religions, for example, would admonish you to be grateful—gratitude being one of the twenty-four strengths.

If gratitude is low on your list of strengths (aka a weakness) almost everything we have been taught insists that you should “work on it!” Gratitude feels good, we are told. It’s important to give back. If you don’t practice gratitude, you are “ungrateful.” Do something nice for someone and you will feel wonderful! 

Except, Seligman says, (and proves) that’s simply not the case. All you’ll feel is guilty that you “should” be grateful, and “should” feel good doing nice things for others...but you don’t. It is literally just not in your DNA. You can pretend (as we often do) but you can’t make it so.

Keep in mind that I’m picking on gratitude at random, and this same case could be made for any of the twenty-four strengths. After decades of research, Seligman comes to this conclusion:

Working on our “weaknesses” will get us nowhere, it is best to simply accept them as part of who we are and move on, content in the knowledge that we will make up for our overall “goodness” through the application of our greatest strengths.

Bringing our top 5 Signature Strengths into our every waking day, is the way that we bring about our “authentic happiness.” It is the way that we create a calling. 

In summary, you can create a calling that will infuse your work with passion and meaning. The three step process is simply:

• Identify your strengths, from top to bottom;
• Make sure and use your top five each and every day
• Accept that your bottom five are just not “you” and don’t feel bad about that. There’s nothing you need to “work on.”

I have personally seen a surge of enthusiasm since undertaking this test (I also read the book which didn’t hurt) so hat are you waiting for? Why not create (or confirm) your calling today?