It’s incredibly frustrating to feel stuck in a job that you don’t like.
Actually, that’s probably an understatement.
Biting your tongue by accident and then biting it again – that’s incredibly frustrating.
Being stuck in a job that you don’t like is like being imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit.
It negatively impacts every area of your life, makes you feel less-than-human, and it seems almost impossible to find a way out of it.
But today, I’m going to show you how to find a job you like. Even if you have one you don’t like right now.
The process may surprise you, but I think that you’ll know intuitively that it’s right once you see it.
Dream Job
What is a dream job, anyway?
Is it a job where you get to sit on the beach all day and occasionally glance at your computer?
Does it mean you’ll be traveling the world?
Well, maybe.
A dream job could be anything, but what it is most of all is a job that fits all your criteria.
That means, for all of you who would love to land your dream job, but are convinced it would never pay enough, you can set your fears aside.
A dream job, by definition, has to meet your criteria.
If a stipulation is that you are making a certain salary and a job you’re eyeing simply doesn’t pay that, then it’s not your dream job.
Whether or not your dream job actually exists is a different question. . .
But wouldn’t you agree that you’d like to get a job as close to your dream job as possible?
Wouldn’t you say that making compromises that feel informed and conscious are better than deciding that since an exact match may not happen, you shouldn’t even try to define “better”?
The Secret to Finding A Job You Like
If you want to know how to find a job you like, you first have to know what you’ll like.
Seems obvious, right?
But today let’s focus on this one secret: A dream job meets all your criteria and standards for what you want the job to do for you.
Now, I know there has been a lot of backlash lately about how “selfish” it is to focus on what a job can do for you and that instead you need to focus on what you can do for the job.
Otherwise you’re thought of as whiny and entitled.
While I agree with focusing on your impact and having a positive attitude, this is a longer story than most would have you believe. That’s a blog post for a different day.
But the short version is that I believe you need to have a job that matters to you on some level before you’re willing to invest the emotional energy into doing a really, really good job.
So how do you begin to understand which dimensions are important to you?
Introducing: The Reverse Resume
Have you ever heard there is scientific proof that writing down your goals improves the likelihood of achieving those goals?
Or that people who write down their goals earn 9 times as much over their lifetimes as people who don’t?
There are some very powerful things about writing down your goals – things that tend to make your goals happen.
Backwards or Reverse?
Most often, when you’re searching for a job, you scan want ads, job websites, and network until your handshaking hand is numb.
But what if all that was backwards?
I mean, on any given day, the job openings you find out about and are qualified for are just a snapshot in time.
That snapshot tells you little about what you’re actually qualified to do and less still about what you really want to do.
Instead, complete the Reverse Resume worksheet first.
The Reverse Resume is a simple but effective tool that will help you to answer some of the questions you probably have about what’s next in your career.
In short, it will help you clearly define your dream job.
Your Questions, Answered
It’s amazing how fuzzy things are before you write them down.
Even if they feel clear, you probably won’t identify the gaps in your thinking until you try to write it all down in a way that makes sense.
The act of writing out your ideas forces you to get clear and specific in your thinking and goals.
And when your ideas are specific, they feel much more tangible and attainable.
In fact, as I mentioned before, when they are so specific you can write them down, you’ve just improved their chance of happening by a huge amount.
Some questions that the Reverse Resume will force you to take a long hard look at are:
What experiences do you want to gain from your next job?
What do you want to feel at the end of the day?
What skills do you want to use?
Who do you want to help?
Start Today
So here’s my challenge for you today. Sign up for my free e-course. Do all the exercises that I send your way.
But pay special attention to day 2. That’s the day that I send out the Reverse Resume.
Take a little time to complete it. And I’m not just talking about magazine quiz “complete,” I’m talking about soul-searching complete.
Then come back here and let me know in the comments if this tool helped you to get clear on what job you’d like.