When the stars align: career and life consequences of calling

In this paper we argue for the importance of disentangling the psychological experience of calling from its behavioral pursuit. We examine the strength of people's calling and their ultimate pursuit-or lack of pursuit-of that calling in their work. We conducted a 4-wave, 11-year prospective longitudinal field study of 508 people anchored in a common calling domain, music, to examine how calling and the pursuit of that calling interact to influence key career and life outcomes. We find differential effects based on whether people with varying calling strengths pursued the calling or not.