Best Life Web

How to discover the job you love

by Sylvia on 04/02/09 at 1:52 pm

A large part of our life is usually taken up by work so our happiness depends a great deal on whether our job satisfies us or not. In far too many cases people really dislike their jobs. They have to drag themselves out of bed and then spend a minimum of 8 hours doing something they don’t enjoy. They can’t wait to go home. Does this sound like you or are you one of the lucky ones that have a job that you love?

I guess it’s safe to say that it is crucially important to find the work you love as it has such an impact on your life. But that may be easier said than done. Many times you do not know what you love and if you do, you may be wondering how that particular thing is possibly going to make you any money. You may feel trapped in your job as you need the salary and can’t see a way of changing without losing (part of) your income.

I was once in that position. I was very good in summing up all the things that I did not want (no office politics, no boss telling me what to do, no boring repetitive tasks, no ugly office) or blaming others for my misfortune (bad economy (hence no jobs) terrible boss, not being given opportunities, not being taken seriously) but not so good in exactly identifying what I wanted to do and how I had the power to get it.

Then I actually came in the luxury position that I could choose what I wanted to do. This was actually quite challenging for now I could not blame anybody else. I was completely responsible. Here I was in this fortunate position that I could choose to find a job in my usual field or I could choose a new career path. This was a great position to be in but having a lot of choice also made me realize that I did not really know what job would make me happy and that I could be good at. 

Then someone recommended the book What Colour Is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles. At first I was a little disheartened by this book as it seemed to be about how to find work and how to deal with rejection. It did of course have some really good tips. One good tip I will share is that if you want to get a job or a project, you need to communicate how you can benefit the company whose job you are applying for. Before that I was always going on about why I wanted to have the job, why I thought I would be good for the job. But all a company owner wants to know is how you can add value to the employer. Focus on the company and not on you in your letter and let them know how their profits will increase when they hire you. 

But back to the matter of finding the job you love. One of the reasons the book starts out with the topic of how to find a job is to make it clear that this process is going to be very hard if you do not have a passion or the talent for the job you are applying for.  In interviews and in letters it will be so much easier to communicate why you are so good for the job and how you can benefit the company if you yourself truly believe in it.

But ok you are still wondering what it is that you could do for a living. Something that you have a real passion for but would still earn you some decent money. Here is where the book really shines. It  also becomes hard work for it now requires  you to sit down and do some homework. Amongst other things you will need to write down:

• what your favorite activities are
• your favorite subjects
• your favorite skills
• the kind of people you like to work with
• what kind of organization you would like to work for
• the kind of people you would like to help
• your main goals in your new career
•  what your desired salary would be 
• the kind of physical environment you like to work in etc.

You will also need to honestly ask yourself where your skills lie. Is it with people, data or things? You will need to rank these and put them in models. All this is analyzed in much detail and almost like a psychologist you will have to pinpoint when, in which job or in which time of your life you were most happy. You will have to methodically rank all your skills and priorities. All these exercises are explained in much detail but they will take some time to complete and they may be confronting at times.

This is not a book that you can quickly read. You will need to do A LOT of exercises. But even if you don’t find all the answers immediately, at least you will have a lot clearer picture on what is important for you in life and you will probably feel inspired and confident that you are able to set your own path and take responsibility for your decisions and actions.

You will need to do some good brainstorming and really think about all the things that you love to do.  What would your ideal life story be? Then you will try and bring all the skills and desires that came out of your research together in one job. The book will give you a lot of ideas and help you put together a shortlist.

For me it has been many years ago that I did this and it was the start of me going into a different direction. I discovered that I wanted to do something more creative. I wanted to really create something tangible and run my own business. And now that I’m looking at the book again I can see that I also crossed several items under “my favourite results”. One of them is “to enrich the world with information / truth” . How amazing. I forgot about that! But isn’t this exactly what I’m trying to do here now?  There are a few more crosses and a lot of them actually became reality. I had my own business, took my own decisions, offered a service to people in the creative field.

I still feel that this book which is constantly revised every year, can still help many people. This is why I’m recommending it to you today. And though you may find it hard ‘work’ to do all the exercises, you may benefit from it for the rest of your life. 

This is the book that helped me. What about you? Did you read any books that you feel have helped you making the right decisions with regard to work? Then share them with us and make a list of the best books to help you find the work you love!

Other articles you may find interesting:

• Raising kids in a foreign country
• Taking the challenge: living abroad
• Singapore travel guide: what to do in Singapore