Finding Convergence

Talking with a good friend in Ministry yesterday he talked about the phenomena called convergence. It's what happens when after years of life and learning and frankly growing up a person comes to a point where everything comes together. Unfortunately that happens for most people right about retirement age.

It's the time when:

    Our Gifts,
    Our Passion,
    Our Skills,
    Our Life Experience,
    Our Spiritual Maturity begins to peak

It would  be good to find your sweet spot earlier... you can.  This is particularly true as you get older.






This is worth doing.  Your life is not over by any means.  You need to refire, not retire.

This self searching isn't that hard, but you need a quiet place.  Early.  After coffee.

You CAN do this on the computer, but it's not as good.

Better to do it with a legal pad and use shorthand scribbling to take the temperature

The first thing to clear you head is write down every job you ever hated, everything you ever did that was something you never want to do again and everything that is unappealing to you in your present mindset.  Whatever comes to mind.  DON'T edit. Don't second guess, don't correct.  Freud needs to operate, you need to function out of your non judgmental brain.  Just write... Everything you hate to do.  Picking up your socks.  ETC.  Spend at least an HOUR compiling this list. Longer is better.  You are using this for raw materials.  Don't worry about repetition, that only means you really really hate it.


Then put that list aside.  You'll come back to it later.

Then take a fresh sheet of paper.  Make a list of every skill, ability, talent, thing you know HOW to do.    Even if you don't want to do it any more, anything you have ever done that represents a skill.  You are taking inventory.  Don't worry if you liked doing it or not.  Turn off your red light thinking. Write down everything you ever did that you did pretty well.  Compile a long list.  For instance.  Light mechanics, furniture making, house building, remodeling, gardening, plumbing, electrical work, making movies, taking pictures, Building your own amplifier, developing film, make a long list.  Spend a couple hours writing down things, go back in time to your child hood. 5 years old if you can recall.  Then go UP from there.  What did you do that represents skills you have.  Teens.  Twenties.  Thirties, Forties, Fifties...   Review each decade of your life and unpack the skill sets you have.  You have a lifetime of skills and abilities the specifically inform your next...

After you have done that.  Take some time to clear your head.  The last step is the most critical.  This one is more subjective.  This one requires honesty and no judgmental thinking.  You MUST avoid the trap of deciding what will or won't work. No matter what, write it down.  You can be critical later.  Right now we are looking for the Blink of Gladwell phenomena.

You are going to triangulate these things..and you need raw materials.

So, after a bit of a break, don't do anything that robs you of energy, Write down everything you ever did that you enjoyed doing....even if you weren't great at it. Once again, go back to your childhood.  Think of the things you liked doing as a kid.  As a teen, In your 20's, 30's 40's and 50's. Look for those times when you were feeling pretty good about things.  You enjoyed them.  You found satisfaction in a job well done.  I know you have had some of these, now it's time to visit them.  Rethink and relive every decade of your life thinking hard about the kind of things you did that gave you any sense of satisfaction, pleasure or reward.

The longer THIS list is, the better the triangulation will be.


Now that you have this done... put it away for a week.  Revisit it once more.  Don't revise, add too.  Each of the categories.  Hate, Skill, Like.

You might want to do this twice.

Then, start to compile.  I would begin by your skill set.  Make a spreadsheet.  List them all.  If there is more than one entry compile.

After you have done this, try to rank yourself in skill 1-10 in each area.  Some things will be a three, others will be a 7  and  a few will be a 9 or 10.

You should now have a list.  However long.  Skills and a rating

Do the same thing later for Things you like to do.  Make a list.  Rate them 1-10.  Some will rank higher some lower.

Last take the things you HATE to do and do the same thing on the spreadsheet.  Rank them by intensity of hatred.

Now cut and past them into three columns.  Skill & rate --- Like & rate --- Hate & rate

DO a data sort based on the numbers.  Under Skill and Like descending, under hate ascending.

Once you have this compiled you will look at it and convergence will take place.  You will see your next step clearly.  Convergence is when our skills, our gifting and our competence all come together at one time.  


You can find convergence.