"I don't know what I want to do as a career, I just know I'm meant to be more than this!"
I hear this often when I counsel people around career choice. In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of more than five examples, both personally and professionally, where someone has declared that they have truly found their life work. And when asked HOW someone determines what they are to do with this burning desire---to contribute to the larger good---my answer is always the same:
You are doing it. Right here and right now.
This is, of course, a very disappointing answer. The need to find our life work is a common subject in magazines, blogs, TV talk shows and countless books ("What Color is My Parachute?" anyone?). This striving and checking and seeking and consulting----always with the same question in mind, "Is THIS it?" is really the only problem from where I'm sitting.
Do you find yourself wondering the following on a regular basis?:
-What can I do to make the world a better place?
-How can I share what I have learned in my life with others as a job?
-How can I find a job where I like everyone I work with and everything I am asked to do?
-What if I retire and realize I never really found my calling?
These questions stem from the wrong source, in my opinion. The very asking of these questions is the problem. We seem to be saying, "I want to give my best to a position...but with THESE people??? Doing THIS???" It's like we asked for our highest calling to be answered, and when we were given the circumstances to achieve it, we said, "But this isn't good enough for ME."
I am in the right job, I am following my passion, I am paid for my 'bliss', and here's what I know to be true based on my own career and after coaching hundreds of clients:
-You make the world a better place, by becoming a compassionate and kind resource in every interaction, or as often as you can, no matter who is in front of you.
-You share what you've learned in life by living it, by being an example, not by conducting a seminar or giving people unsolicited advice.
-You will never, ever find a job where you like everyone or everything you do. This holds true for everything...not just work!
-Your only calling is to leave someone better off than you found them. To use them as both your own mirror (when they rub you the wrong way); and to lead by example no matter who is watching.
You are in the right job. No mistakes. No wrong choices. There is no 'better things to come'. You are where you are supposed to be, because that's where you are. Your life work is to make life easier for others. Your life work is to do your own inner-work, to be as clear and receptive to others as humanly possible, and bring THAT into every interaction (whether you are on the clock or not). Your life work is getting up after reading this article, and walking over to the next cube, and saying something that will make that person's burden lighter.
Right now. Stop reading. Start walking over to that cube. Get to work.
See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.
