Not living the dream? Six tips to figure out the work you love

Introduction

"The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard recognized that we can only understand life backwards, but we have to live it forwards. These career tips can help you make sense of life, enabling you to look in the rear view mirror and think deeply about how you got to where you are now, and how that can inform next steps"

'Living the dream' is a shorthand term used for living an ideal life, especially as it relates to one’s career. You may look around the office or your circle of friends, and see that others seem happier at work than you, and wish you too could find that joy. This article will help you figure out what ‘living the dream’ might mean for you, as that is the starting point for unlocking a career with purpose. You may be reading this if you don’t really know what to do work wise. You may have stumbled into work based on what you studied, or what you were good at. You may have moved from one job to another but without really considering the path you are on. Jobs and organisations can take over our lives, and you may have lost touch with who you are and what you want from work. 

Six Top Tips

As a career coach, I work with people at different life stages, from their twenties to their fifties, who want to figure out what work will really bring them joy, and what success means beyond material wellbeing. You may question the value of doing this later in life. But as a career coach, I flip that and say better to stop right now, draw a line in the sand today and take time to figure this out. It need only take a couple of weeks to reflect on what is your purpose, and find a path to whatever success means to you. Read this article and understand my six top tips to find your life purpose and begin living the dream. 

Tip 1 – Reflect Mode Make a deal with yourself that you are going to figure what success means to you, and commit to spending time to do this. Decide who you are going to share the findings with – it can be a friend, your partner, or a career coach. Choose wisely, someone who will listen, not judge nor advise, but just enable you to play back your learning. Make a date now with that person for say two weeks from now, which will give you a deadline to work to.  

Tip 2 – Taking stock Nearly 200 years ago, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard recognized that while we can only understand life backwards, we have to live it forwards. My career association, the International Association of Career Coaches introduced me to two tools which can help you make sense of life, enabling you to look in the rear view mirror and think deeply about you got to where you are now, and how that can inform next steps:

• Chunks of life. Divide your life into periods of five or ten years, and think about what you were doing and your state of mind. Document your work and other parts of your life and how happy you were, what was bringing you joy and what was dragging you down.
• Love/Hate. Create a table of the jobs you have done, and in two columns documented what you loved about the work, and what you hated. When you are done, take a highlighter and look for trends, commonality and differences, consider why some things make you happy and some make you mad.

When you have completed both tools, take some time to look across both sets of findings and document your reflections.

Tip 3 – Ikigai, meaning of life Having looked backwards, now it’s time to create your future and I love using the ikigai framework for that.  Ikigai combines the aspirational side (what you love, what you are great at) with the practical (what you can be paid for, what the world around you needs). You can download my ikigai workbook to help you complete this tool, and define what life purpose means to you.

Tip 4 – Have fun, you can use a free, professional online career tool. Career tools can be helpful to throw up wildcard ideas and act as a reality check. Not an essential step but if you want to see what an algorithm makes of how you assess your skills, preferences, personality, then look for a free tool such as on this website: 10 Awesome Free Career Self-Assessment Tools on the Internet | Cleverism I regularly use CareerExplorer with clients for example.

Tip 5 – Get drafting. When you have completed these exercises, take a blank notebook, write the date and draft your ambition statement: what success looks like to you, in as much detail as you can – you work, health, wellbeing, any aspect of your life that is important to you. Remember the mantra: ‘if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist’, so document everything as it flows. It doesn’t need to be beautiful prose, different points may be contradictory, the key thing is to write everything down.

Tip 6 – Playback. Now have that date with your career coach, friend or peer and talk through the work you have done, what you believe your ambition is. Remember you are not looking for advice, you just need the space to share and reflect your insights.  Ask your listener to ask open or probing questions for clarity, nothing more. This may be the first time you have shared your ambition, and saying it out loud is a key part of testing, honing and hopefully embedding your life purpose. And when you are comfortable with defining what success looks like for you, then you begin to action plan for how to get there from wherever you are at now.

Conclusion

Most people haven’t thought about what success means to them. This set of exercises can be really thought provoking in helping you define your life purpose. One client fed back “I really enjoyed the exercises. It required a lot of thought and contemplation”, another said to me that she admitted more truths to herself in the weeks doing this, than she had in years of working.  All my clients have found that a combination of these tools can help them surface underlying skills, talents and preferences, and make sense of work choices, even if they didn’t feel conscious choices at the time. So if you are not living the dream, carve out time, follows these tips and help understand your life purpose to unlock a career that will work for the fullness of you.