Read a Book: Recommended Reading

A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience

By John Neafsey. Drawing widely on the wisdom of saints, sages, and the traditions of spiritual direction, Neafsey describes a path to living in the place, as Frederick Buechner has put it, "where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Answering Your Call: A Guide to Living Your Deepest Purpose

By John P. Schuster. This spiritual how-to book helps readers discern what they are called to do, find the courage to respond to that call, and stay on course to make that vision a reality.

Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life

By Gregg LeVoy. This book examines the many kinds of calls we receive and offers a guide to discovering your own callings and negotiating the tight passages to personal power and authenticity.

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This book shows how the same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life.

Discovering Your Personal Vocation: The Search for Meaning through the Spiritual Exercises

By Herbert Alphonso, SJ. This book helps readers identify their personal vocation, or special way of being, and elaborates on the connection between personal vocation and the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.

First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life and Living

By Richard Bode. Bode offers an inspirational reflection on what learning to sail taught him about life: making choices, adapting to change, and becoming his own person.

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

By Parker Palmer. Sharing stories of frailty and strength, of darkness and light, Palmer shows that vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.

Make Your Job Your Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation Can Change Your Life at Work

By Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy. Regardless of where we are in our careers, we can all find joy and meaning in the work we do. This book helps the reader navigate the many challenges that may arise along the pathway to a sense of calling at work.

The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You were Meant to Do

By Jeff Goins. Through personal experience, compelling stories, and current research on the mysteries of motivation and talent, Goins shows readers how to find their vocation and what to expect along the way.

The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now

By Meg Jay. Drawing on more than ten years of research, this book shows how work, relationships, personality, social networks, identity, and even the brain can change more during the twenties more than any other time in adulthood.

The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream

By Courtney Martin. A groundbreaking exploration of the ways Americans are reinventing success and redefining “better off,” through lives that reject traditional status symbols in lieu of fulfillment and valuing relationships over money.

The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life

By William Damon. This book is based on the findings of a landmark four-year nationwide study of how young people from the ages of 12 – 26 are struggling to find their purpose in life.