How Do You Think About Your Job?
How you think about your job will directly affect how you work day to day. Sadly, many people have a very wrong perspective about their vocation. There is good reason for this: modern culture finds much of it’s identity in their 9 to 5 job. Additionally, countless books have been written on how to improve your work, how to land your dream job, and a host of other work-related topics.
For Christians, the primary source for how you think about your job is Scripture. Proverbs in particular is incredibly instructive when it comes to how to perform your vocation. But recently I read a book that I think helpfully deals with this question of how you view your work: “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport. Of the different secular books I have read on the topic of work, I find Cal Newport’s analysis both the most helpful and the most consistent with Biblical principles.
Today, I want to look at a quote from “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” that summarizes the thesis of the book. The quote deals with two mindsets: the “passion mindset” which most people in our culture adopts and the “craftsman mindset” which is the mindset Newport argues for. As we will see, it is also the mindset which best lines of with Biblical teaching.
The craftsman mindset focuses on what value you are producing in your job while the passion mindset focuses on what value your job offers you.
“So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport
What the quote means
This quote summarizes the entirety of Newport’s book. Newport wants to correct the common modern mindset that the key to enjoying your job is to find a job you are passionate about. He calls this the “passion mindset.” I am sure you have often heard this mindset expounded by those around you in various forms:
- “Do what you love”
- “Follow your dreams”
- “If you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life”
- “Why waste time in a job you don’t like?”
And so on. The entire book Newport writes is spent exposing the flaws with this mindset and offering an alternative: the “craftsman” mindset. In the quote above, Newport says the fundamental issue with the passion mindset is it focuses on what your job offers you instead of what value you are producing for your job.
The reason Newport uses the word “craftsman” to describe the alternative mindset is craftsmen focus on how they do their work. The focus is on creating an excellent product, not primarily on personal enjoyment. Certainly craftsmen get enjoyment from their work, but this enjoyment is an organic outcome of doing their work well. In short, the craftsman mindset focuses on the work itself and how to do it well while the passion mindset’s primary question is “do I enjoy this work?”
Why it is important
Newport gives two very helpful categories, and most people I know (including myself) have fallen into the trap of the passion mindset. When all of your focus is on how much you enjoy or do not enjoy your job, your perspective is on yourself rather than on the work. Certainly some jobs are “better” than others but it is a dangerous cultural assumption that your job is primarily about your fulfillment or enjoyment.
Christians can take further issue with the passion mindset: God is ultimately in control of what job you end up in. Therefore, the Christian is less concerned with the question “do I enjoy this job” and more concerned with answering “how can I glorify God in the job He has given me?”
Christians find fulfillment in the Lord. Therefore, they should be less susceptible to the modern worldview that makes one’s job the end-all-be-all of one’s life.
Furthermore, Christians should be concerned with how they do their job. The “craftsman” mindset is just a new name Newport puts on an old Biblical concept: what your job is matters far less than why you do your job and how you do your job. The “why” of Christian work is tied to a theology of God’s glory in all things:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
“How” Christians work is tied very closely to Newport’s “focus on the value you are producing” mindset. Where do I find this? Scripture consistently praises skillful work. Proverbs 22:29 has the most explicit statement on the topic:
Do you see a man skillful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men.
Proverbs 22:29, ESV
In the Old Testament, the Lord also used skilled workers to build the tabernacle and the temple:
And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.
Exodus 36:2, ESV
You have an abundance of workmen: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and all kinds of craftsmen without number, skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Arise and work! The Lord be with you!”
1 Chronicles 22:15-16, ESV
Finally, in the Psalms musicians are called to worship the Lord skillfully:
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 33:3, ESV
“Skillful” work is focused on the quality of the work, not on the amount of pleasure the work brings you.
Takeaways
1. Ask yourself “how can I do my job better? How can I increase the quality of my work? How can I make my work more valuable?”
If you want to wake up and go to your job excited, you need to change the way you think about your job. Focus on what value you will add to your place of employment that day, or think about what you can do to increase the quality of your work. Pray the Lord would show you ways to perform your job excellently. Go to work with an eagerness to improve how well you do your job.
There will certainly be bad days along the way and days you don’t want to go into work. But once you accept this is the job God has provided for you currently, you are free to do that work excellently. Accept God’s will, then work for God’s glory. If Christians are constantly complaining about their job, if they are always seeking a different or “better” job, what does that say about the Christian worldview?
If you want a better visible testimony at work, “do all things without complaining or disputing” and work unto the Lord in all you do at your job.
Most people complain about their job and don’t do their job particularly well. Christians can stand out by joyfully serving well in the job the Lord provides. What does that practically look like? Develop a craftsman mindset, focus on doing valuable work, and improve each day how you do your job.
2. Derive pleasure from the quality of the work you do, not the job in which you are currently employed
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,
Ecclesiastes 2:24, ESV
Enjoying your work is a gracious gift from the Lord. But in 21st century America, enjoyment and fulfillment at work is demanded as a right rather than received as a gift. The result? If you find yourself not enjoying what you are doing, you either complain about your job to no end or you leave it to find greener grass elsewhere. But notice what the author of Ecclesiastes says: “There is nothing better for a person…(to) find enjoyment in his toil.”
You aren’t just to find enjoyment in your perfect dream job. Biblically, you can enjoy toil, hard labor, wearing effort. This is good news for the Christian: you don’t have to make a big career change to enjoy your job. The Bible says God graciously gives people enjoyment even in toilsome labor. How is this perspective lived out?
When God created the world, He spoke, saw what He had made, and then pronounced it “good.” In other words, God enjoyed the goodness of what He had created after He created it. This is the same pattern you see in Newport’s “craftsman” mindset: you derive pleasure from the quality of the work you do. Don’t get stuck wishing for a better job. Do your work excellently every day so that when you leave, you can say that day’s work was “good”. Then pray that God would grant you enjoyment in your labor.
There is much more that could be said. Newport’s contrast between the craftsman and the passion mindset is helpful for Christians to think through in light of Scripture. In the end, the most important mindset a Christian needs to have with regards to their work is a God-glorifying mindset.
Click here to read previous “Book Quote of the Week” posts. For more of my thoughts on Christians and work, click here. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.