What Do You Want?
The Key To Living a Satisfying Career Life
This is a short and sweet post about how to know what you want and then get what you want when it comes to your career.
First, let me tell you a little story about where a majority of the job searches start…
You go online. Prowling for a job. Scouring through job description after job description and suddenly it hits you — none of these jobs sounds exciting in the least.
Not in a million years.
In fact, you come to realize that you aren’t even sure what job would excite you. Believe it or not, you are not alone in this realization. It can be overwhelming to search for a job, but even more overwhelming to search for a job when you have no clue what you should be searching for.
Now, this is the perfect time for some self-reflection. Take a walk down memory lane. In other words, you get to stop and think about what you want.
Stop and reflect back on what you’ve been investing your time in, which could include things like looking at your extracurricular activities, courses you took in school, your work history. Examine what you did and didn’t like – why or why not? Then, write down the things you enjoyed along with the skills you posses that would support things you enjoy.
This exercise will act as your North Star because only now can you see the true direction you really want to go as opposed to wasting time applying to jobs and companies you have absolutely no interest in.
Now that you’ve taken some time to gain insight on your likes/dislikes and your strengths/weaknesses, let’s talk about what aspects these influence. They influence….
Get ready for it…
Wait for it…..
Everything!
Knowing what you want is the life-source for every aspect of your job hunt from your attitude, where you look for jobs, how you show up at an interview, and even to how you negotiate compensation.
Think about it — you show up to an interview for an accounting position when you despise numbers. Do you think you’re going to show up enthusiastic, much less knowledgable, about the position? Then let’s say by some miracle you are able to convince both them and yourself that you want the job, will you show up as confident when asking for pay for a job you’re not even sure you’re qualified for because you’re too stubborn to admit that you made a mistake and don’t want a job dealing with numbers? Let’s go with definitely not.
Employers want to hire and compensate people who want to be there (go figure). They want loyalty and enthusiasm — something that you should want to bring to a job because you would kill for that job.
So now that you know what you want, you must promise yourself and future recruiters to never apply to a job again based solely on the following 3 reasons:
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Money, money, money – Money cannot be the only driving force behind you showing up to a job day in, day out. You will not be motivated to push yourself, you will burn out, and you (and your employer) deserve better than that.
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To get to the job you really wanted – Applying to one position solely to get to another one is a waste of time. If you want that job, apply for it! If you don’t see that kind of a position is available, apply for it anyway! As I’ve talked about in earlier posts, many jobs are not actually posted publicly so there is a good chance something you want actually exists and is waiting for you to jump up and snag it — it’s your move!
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It was the only job you could get – Desperation may sound like a good motivator to accept a job…but it’s not. As said before, employer’s want to hire people who will bring up their company’s morale, not lower it. It’s easy to tell when Downer Debbie got hired, doesn’t like the job nor doesn’t want to be there. If it’s not a job you want, don’t take it. A better job will come along that you will love, but you’ve got to put in the time and be patient — not desperate.
Life is now and you deserve to love it now — this includes having a career you will love that you will jump out of bed for every morning. You get to have a career that betters you and therefore, betters others.
Now is the time to stop, grab a good ole fashioned pen and paper and get dreaming about the kind of career you could and will have if you simply listen to what you really want.
