Your Life Is the Assignment: Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode

Description:

For twenty years, one question has followed Jen everywhere she goes: what am I supposed to be doing with my life? It comes in the comments, the voicemails, the line after every event. And for a long time, Jen answered it like a career question, as if somewhere out there was a slot with her name on it and her only job was to find it and climb inside.

In this solo episode, she puts down the word calling and picks up a different one: assignment. Not the thing waiting for you in the future, but the work already in your hands, in this season, on this street, with these people. Jen untangles work from worth, names the theology a lot of us absorbed that rewarded us for burning out, and shares the questions she uses to tell the difference between an assignment that is actually hers and one that is simply available. She also talks about the assignments that end, and why finishing one well is its own sacred work.

Ordinary, faithful, unglamorous work is not the consolation prize for people who never found their capital C calling. It is the actual thing.

This episode kicks off September's theme, Sacred Work, here on the show and over in the AWAKE Collective.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• "I have stopped asking what my calling is altogether. I started asking what my assignment is." - Jen Hatmaker
• "Sacred work is not a waiting room for a more important life that hasn't started yet." - Jen Hatmaker
• "The paycheck is not the assignment. The paycheck funds the life where the assignment happens." - Jen Hatmaker
• "Burnout is not evidence that you are on assignment. More likely it is evidence that you have taken on someone else's assignment." - Jen Hatmaker
• "A real assignment will cost you something. But an obligation costs you yourself. That's not the same bill." - Jen Hatmaker
• "Something does not have to be bad for it to be over." - Jen Hatmaker

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• This month's Sacred Work lineup: Priya Parker, Dr. Marisa Franco, Zibby Owens, plus encore conversations with Barbara Brown Taylor and Mary Pipher
• Worth by Dr. Marisa Franco
• The AWAKE Collective monthly reflection guide. September's writing prompt: The work that is mine right now is...
• Your challenge this week: name one assignment you are actually on, then do the very next small thing it requires
• Leave Jen a voicemail: https://jenhatmaker.com/podcast

Take the AWAKE Quiz: JenHatmaker.com/quiz

Connect with Jen!

Jen's Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/

Jen's Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmaker

Jen's Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/

Jen's Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmaker

Jen's YouTube -