Is It Even Possible to Find Work You Love?

A follow up to Therese's article I published earlier:what-should-you-do-with-your-life
I think her writing style is refreshing.Enjoy.Ev

Is It Even Possible to Find Work You Love?

Posted by Therese on October 22, 2012 • 1 comment

I hear it from friends and from readers all the time: “I’m not really happy at my job, but I feel stuck here.”

Take the story of my friend Amanda, for example. We were out for coffee the other day when, in between complaints about her boyfriend’s football watching habit and the story of her dog’s trip to the vet, she mentioned how unhappy she was at her current job as a billing specialist.
“I just feel so stuck,” she said. “I don’t see any way out.”
“Why do you feel stuck?” I asked her.
“Well,” she continued, “because I’m not really sure what exactly I do want to do. I’ve thought about going back to school for nursing, but it just seems like too big of a risk. What if I end up hating it, too? Or what if I can’t even find a job and I’m left unemployed and penniless? I know this isn’t it, but I just don’t know what is. I have no idea where to even start… is it even possible to find work I love?”
I wanted to reach across the table, place my hands firmly on each of her shoulders, and very loudly yell, “YES, my friend, it is totally possible– it’s just that you’re going about things the wrong way. LET ME SHOW YOU HOW!”

Instead, I nodded empathetically and took another bite of my pumpkin scone. With as much restraint as possible (we were in the middle of a coffee shop, after all), I proceeded to very calmly tell her what I’m about to reveal to you today: there’s a better way to discover your path than the way most of us try to do it.

How do I know? Because I did it myself. If you’d have asked me five years ago what I wanted to do with my life, I’d have looked at you with a blank stare. “I don’t know,” I would’ve told you, “but I sure as hell know that this ain’t it.”

Five years later I stand before you having crafted a pursuit that, quite frankly, I don’t ever want to live without. Five years ago I’d have given anything to get off work early. Today I’d rather give up just about anything than give up the work I love.

So, YES, it’s absolutely possible to discover the work you love and to transition to a new job or a new field– even if you don’t yet have experience doing anything else, and even if you have no clue where to start. In fact, these are exactly the secrets I show you in my new e-course for finding your truest career & life path. As far as I know, these principles aren’t taught in any high school, university, or career center in the world.

They’re amazingly simple, and yet no one had ever mentioned them to me before.
And by using these principles over time, I’ve been able to find my way into a career and life path that I’m incredibly, insane-ballzy, over-the-top passionate about.

Today I’ll reveal to you four of the little known secrets to finding a career & life path that you love.

1. Stop freaking out about making “the perfect choice”

So many of us are caught up with finding “the one perfect thing.” We’re worried that if we choose wrong, the world will end. HOLY COW THAT’S A LOT OF PRESSURE! But here’s the thing, guys: among the people I interviewed who love their work, none of them got there by making one perfectly calculated, all-or-nothing decision.
Instead, they found their way into their current pursuits incrementally over time by exploring lots of different options and environments (either within a specified field or among multiple fields).
Here’s the best part: there’s a simple way to try things out and to gain experience without taking a risky, all-or-nothing leap from your current job. In fact, you can do lots of small “experiments” before you even leave your current job, so that by the time you’re ready to take the leap, your decision will be based on real-life experience instead of a simple (and potentially deadly) guess.

2. Realize that you don’t have to see the exact endpoint

A few weeks ago I wrote a post for Brazen Careerist about how finding your truest career path isn’t all that different than finding a wife (or a husband!). You don’t start off knowing the exact person you’re going to marry, and no one expects you to. In fact, to hold someone up to this expectation would be ludicrous.
So why do we expect this when it comes to our careers? Why is there this ridiculous expectation that we should know from the get-go exactly what we want to do with our lives?
Again, guys, there’s a better way to do it. Instead of trying to jump all the way from Point A to Point D, you can just focus on finding your way to Point B. You don’t have to (and oftentimes can’t) jump straight to the “perfect” endpoint– all you need to do is take one small step closer to your destination.
When you get there you will see even further.

3. Seek advice from those who’ve done it before

Whenever I talk to people about finding fulfilling career paths, I’m always surprised to find that most of them have never sought advice from people who’ve already done it.
Here’s a morsel of wisdom: If you want to find work you love, seek out people who’ve found their truest paths and ask how they did it.
That’s what I did when I found myself lost, and it’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve found my way to where I am now. (The answers I found, by the way, were surprising. Of all the people I talked to, not one of them had started off knowing exactly what they wanted to do or with some grand plan to end up in the exact profession they now loved.)

4. Don’t just sit there– do something

Now, just because you don’t have to start off knowing all the answers doesn’t mean that you can blissfully and passively float through life and everything will magically fall into place. HA!
Although the people I interviewed didn’t start off with an exact endpoint in mind, every single one of them adhered to certain guiding principles that helped them find their way into their current pursuits. By using this framework as a guide and by constantly applying themselves and taking deliberate steps forward, they were able to navigate their way into their truest paths.
So there you have it: four of the secrets to finding your way into a career & a life path you love.
If you wanna learn more about these four principles, check out the details of my new e-course, which begins in just a few short weeks. Inside the course I’ll be going into detail about the specifics of these methods and how you can apply them to your own situation to start finding your way today.
Where will you be a few months– or a few years– from now? Will you be taking active, deliberate steps toward discovering and living a career & life path that you love with a passion?
Or will you still be sitting in the same place you are now, stressing and thinking and plotting your next move without a clear, effective, proven navigational framework to guide you?
If you’re determined to get “unstuck,” join me in the first Unlost class ever known to (wo)man. I think you’ll be really glad you did.
Here’s the link one last time.
Hope to see you there!
xoxo,
Therese