Finding a Calling: Interests, Small Trials and Cycles of Power

Let us imagine an evening after work. Job advertisements are open on the screen, a painting course is bookmarked, and several ideas have been sitting in a notebook for months. Each seems interesting, but the same question follows: “What if this is not for me either?” Certainty seems necessary before spending time. Without trying anything, little new information arrives, so the next evening begins with the same browser tabs.

There are several ways to examine this situation: what attracts the person, which conditions are missing, what they have tried and what change is currently manageable. Pamela Levin’s Cycles of Power model can offer language for those questions. It cannot assign a profession by age or establish the cause of uncertainty from a single feeling.

A small painting trial after work. AI-generated editorial illustration.

“I do not know what I want” sometimes means nothing seems interesting. Elsewhere, someone has many wishes but cannot see how to combine them with earning a living, caring responsibilities or available energy. These are different problems requiring different information.

Clarify what is unsatisfactory about the current job. The tasks, hours, manager, income, commute or lack of learning opportunities? If conditions are the main difficulty, changing professions might be a larger upheaval than necessary. If the content no longer interests you, notice which tasks still attract attention.

An exhausted evening is not an ideal moment for a final verdict on every interest. Before a major decision, notice how much time and energy are available for any new activity. There is no need to wait for perfect conditions either: an initial trial can be very small.

In The Cycle of Development, Pam Levin-Landheer describes the powers of being, doing, thinking, identity, being skilful, regeneration and recycling. Her theoretical model within transactional analysis proposes that developmental themes can become important again throughout life.

Pamela Levin, author of the Cycles of Power model. Portrait from biographical material published by the Gaeta Institute.

For exploring an occupation, these names can be used as directions for observation. The questions below are our practical reading of the model, not a test of which stage someone “failed”. Difficulty choosing work as an adult cannot establish a developmental problem during the first months of life.

Nor does someone else’s advice or prohibition establish “atrophied neural connections”. Family experience may matter in a conversation about choices, alongside education, health, labour-market opportunities, relationships and previous experience of the activity itself.

A question about being can start modestly: “What am I missing that would leave me with energy to be interested in anything?” The answer might concern rest, a lighter workload or time without evaluation. It will not yet name a profession, but it clarifies the conditions in which the search is happening.

Doing supplies information that thinking alone cannot. Attend an open lecture, complete one learning exercise or talk to someone who does the work daily. Admiring an outcome differs from enjoying the process. Liking illustrations and wanting to spend hours drawing them are different experiences.

A trial can remain a hobby. Painting does not have to pay the rent to be valuable, and a current job need not provide every possible form of self-expression. Sometimes a change becomes clearer when it is no longer required to become a new profession immediately.

Levin’s model calls the period from approximately eighteen months to three years the Power of Thinking. For adult reflection, a useful question is: “What do I already know about this option, and what am I assuming?” The Power of Thinking article explores independence and support in more detail.

If the familiar rule is “you cannot earn a living through creativity”, investigate whose experience informs it and what facts are available now. Income depends on the particular activity, demand, skills and working conditions. Both unquestioning agreement and an automatic urge to prove the opposite leave little room for that examination.

In self-determination theory, Ryan and Deci consider autonomy, competence and relatedness. For a personal decision, this suggests further questions: do I understand why I am taking this on, can I learn, and does the way of interacting with people suit me? This is a separate approach, not confirmation of Levin’s age-based scheme.

Richard Ryan (left) and Edward Deci (right), co-developers of self-determination theory. Photo: J. Adam Fenster / University of Rochester. Source.

Instead of “who am I now?”, begin with a more precise description: “I work in accounting and I am trying painting.” It leaves room for learning. You need not settle whether you are entitled to call yourself an artist before completing a first exercise and receiving feedback.

Skills require practice, and interest does not remove the awkwardness of being a beginner. Notice what is difficult: understanding a tool, organising time, tolerating mistakes or carrying out a technical task. That allows a choice of learning approach without declaring every difficulty evidence that the activity is “not yours”.

The O*NET Interest Profiler is another tool for exploring occupational interests. It can suggest directions to investigate. Its occupational and labour-market information concerns the United States, so local requirements and opportunities need separate checking; a result does not replace experience of a particular job.

Teenage interests can be revisited as part of your history: what did you enjoy about performing, making things, explaining or organising? They do not oblige you to revive an old dream. Some interests remain, others change, and some possible occupations were unknown at the time.

The idea of a new cycle invites a question about what you want to reconsider now. Perhaps keep the profession but change the workload, add learning or recognise that an activity appeals only occasionally. Revisiting a choice does not require declaring your earlier life inauthentic.

Let us return to the person from our evening scene. They choose two short watercolour sessions and one small painting between them, deciding beforehand on acceptable costs, time and a day to review the experience. This is one possible way of testing an interest, not a universal career-change plan.

Afterwards, record what you wanted to continue, what was tiring and what was missing. The decision might be another lesson, a different format, a pause or stopping. An ordinary entry in the EQ emotions journal can retain specific observations instead of a memory dominated by initial excitement or one disappointing evening.

Abruptly leaving a job is not a requirement for this exploration; equally, dangerous conditions need not be endured to follow a “correct sequence of stages”. If a persistent loss of interest affects most of life, or everyday tasks have become unmanageable, seek professional support. A developmental model cannot replace assessment of a person’s condition.