Perhaps you’ve struggled to figure out what career is the right one for you. That can be a very long a frustrating journey and it can seem like there isn’t many resources that will truly help you. Perhaps you have an idea of what you would like to do next but it’s nothing like what you’re doing now and you can’t afford to take a pay cut while you build back your experience and expertise. In either case, there is a process that can help you and some steps you can start today.
Clarify Your Forever Job
The first step is always to gain as much clarity about your “forever job” as you can. I call it your forever job because you won’t be job hopping once you find the thing(s) that light you up. The amount of clarity you have will depend on many factors including how much time you’ve spent exploring your options, how well you’ve tuned into your own interests and how well you’ve listened to that part of yourself that knows exactly what you’re meant to do.
If clarity is your personal struggle, you may be beating your head against the wall trying to figure it out. This frustration can actually be a part of the problem. You may be going circles, never making progress and giving up because you can’t see how to change the situation. Einstein put it well when he said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
So how do you shift your level of consciousness? You ask yourself two key questions. The first is easy. Ask yourself, “When it comes to my job, what makes me feel discontent?” Make a list of everything you can think of. Be specific and include things like hours, pay, benefits, types of customers and coworkers. Think about the types of tasks you have. Which ones don’t you like? This is feedback from your soul about what doesn’t work for you. Give yourself permission to pay attention.
The second questions is “What would I love?” Notice I didn’t ask what you would like. We’re not going for what you would like. Your forever job is not on the “like” frequency. If you really take this to heart and lean into the question, “What would I love?” you will absolutely love the forever job you design for yourself. You’ll know you found your forever job when you wake up in the mornings excited to go to work. You will love pouring your time and energy into this job because it lights you up. This is what we’re going for! So think about what hours you would love to work. Think about what kind of work you would love to do. Think about the kinds of clients you would love to work with. Think about how much money you would love to make (not what’s realistic or normal for other people who do this kind of work but what you would love). These are all important questions to ask yourself
Write it Down
The next step is to write what you would love into a paragraph and be sure it is present tense. Start with I am so happy and grateful now that…
Here’s an example.
I am so happy and grateful now that I work with clients who truly appreciate my help. What lights me up is when I hear from my customers how unhappy and stressed they felt in their old jobs and how much better they feel now that they have the best job in the world. I love choosing my own hours and having flexibility to pick my daughter up from school. Seeing her run up to me to give me a big hug is the best feeling in the world. I really enjoy all the new places I have been traveling to such as Baltimore, Roanoke, Virginia Beach, San Diego and L.A. My family gets to travel with me and my business pays our way. I can work from anywhere which feels like pure freedom. I make over $200,000 a year. I love my job!
Review Your Vision Daily
The second step is to review this vision daily. The best thing is to read it when you wake up and right before you go to bed. There are many reasons for this. The first of which is that you are activating your Reticular Activating System which is your brain’s filter. It sifts through tens of thousands of images per day to tell your brain which ones to pay attention to. For example, have you ever been interested in a certain type of car? Once you get interested in that specific type of car, your brain starts to notice it and points it out to you each time it appears. Well, imagine if you had your brain looking for anything that matches the forever job. Would that be useful?
The second reason for reviewing your vision daily is that you begin reprogramming the neural pathways in your brain. These pathways make up your internal operating system. Like a computer, you and I have a set of habitual thoughts and actions. Think about it! Nearly everything we do in a day is from habit. How we respond when someone asks us how we are doing is a habit. What we eat for breakfast is a habit. The route we drive to work is a habit.
These habits are literally programmed into our brains through neural pathways and this makes life much easier for us. Without this programming, we would be overwhelmed by the amount of decisions we have to make in a day. That being said, if our operating system is not in alignment with what we would love, it can keep us stuck in a rut such as going to a job we hate day in and day out. Learning to override this operating system takes awareness and discipline. Nearly everything in us tries to resist doing new tasks, taking new actions, saying new things, and thinking new thoughts. Yet with practice and training we can learn to retrain our minds not just for the purpose of having a better job, but for the purpose of having a better health, relationships, lifestyle, freedom, and money. Repetition is the key to retraining our brains.
Reading your vision daily is a way to retrain your brain. Keeping it present tense and actually imagining your vision is happening right now with all the detail of a movie and all the emotions of a real life experience, you will ingrain this new way of living into your brain. Our subconscious brain cannot tell the difference between an imagined scenario and real life but the key is to make your vision look and feel real. Closing your eyes and seeing it as if it’s really happening is the key. It’s like giving your brain a command and your brain will go to work to make it happen.
Every single one of us has a super computer in our heads. When we learn how it works and how we can program it to accomplish any goal, we become unstoppable. Your forever job is a wonderful, life changing goal. The price you pay for not going for it is massive but the benefits you gain by stepping forward and saying, “I’m all in!” are the best you will ever experience. There is a feeling of aliveness that comes when we pursue an ambitious goal that we are incredibly passionate about. With guidance you can learn how to pursue your passion and life will feel refreshing, fun and amazing.