Career Happiness

For most people around the world, work has always been about making a living. We all need shelter, food, transportation, electricity, Manolo Blaniks (well, maybe not that last one) and other necessities and comforts to continue our existence and that of our dependents. In the past decades people are realizing that a job pays bills, but it also takes a token on our relationships, our health and our wellbeing. I have met a few clients who were working well over forty hours per week only to end up taking a stress leave or even go on disability due to depression. Work does not have to be only a duty or a way of paying bills, especially if we are not happy with what we are doing and our health and the rest of our lives are suffering because of it.

As we walk through this path called Life, we encounter many crossroad and possibilities in our ways. Sometimes we are pressured to take on a job we don’t like, let alone feel passionate about, just for the money, only to end up feeling unhappy and unfulfilled several months down the road.

It does not matter what kind of job you have right now, you can start by taking a few small steps to determine what your next career should be.

I believe that there are five variables that can help us make a better choice next time we are faced with changing jobs. These are your interests, things you enjoy and are passionate about; your competencies, those skills you have that can be put to use in doing something you love; your capabilities, your drive to become all that you can be; your motivation, the values and needs that get you moving and help you move forward in your life; and finally, your fit, the setting that would be perfect for you to put all other elements to work in order to create your perfect job.

Of course finding a perfect job is not as simple as following those five elements and it takes time and effort, but it is a beginning, and if given a little thought, it will get your ideas flowing and your vision expanding.

What Matters Most

Get up, make breakfast, get kids up, get ready for work, drive kids to school, go to work. Run errands at lunch time, back to work. Leave work, pick up kids, soccer practice, piano lessons. Go home, make dinner, do laundry… the list goes on. Sounds familiar? For many Americans, the demands of our daily lives keep us so busy that sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on what matters most to us. The lives that we are leading right now may have nothing to do with the lives we once dreamed of, the places we would go, the jobs we would have, the accomplishments we would attain. What is most interesting is that some people wander through their lives without even knowing what they want out of it, assuming that things are just the way they are, that “this is the life that we were meant to have”, that whatever circumstances were are in, is as good as it gets.

Our lives don’t necessarily have to be someone else’s design, we have the option to dream, to discover possibilities, to act upon them and to make of the time we have, the best time we can have. The first step is to just sit and dream, imagine what kind of life you want, who do you want in it, where you want it. When I ask some of my clients what they want out of life, they stare blankly at me and in the best case, they just start reciting a collection of words that do not make up any real dream, “make money”, “go on a vacation”, “pay for my kids’ college”…

To these clients, I like to present them with a little exercise: Imagine you are very old, very, very old. You are lying in your bed, at your house, and you are ill. You know that you have only a few more days to live, maybe one or two, not much time left. As you lay there staring that your ceiling, you close your eyes and in your mind, you start going over your life. What it was, what it is. At this time, when you know you have not time left, look back in your life and finish the sentence: “I wish I had…” And THAT, is your goal, that thought or thoughts, those desires that you wish you had fulfilled, those accomplishments you never had, the things that you regret you didn’t do, that’s what’s all about. It’s all about being at you deathbed and thinking, “What a wonderful life I had, I couldn’t ask for anything more.” Think about it next time your life coach asks you what you want out of life.