By Deirdre McEachern
Article Date: 2003-10-24

Many people I talk with are struggling with their careers. They are currently working but feel bored, stalled and unfulfilled. They desperately want to find work they will enjoy but have no idea where to start. I know how they feel. A number of years ago I faced the same dilemma. I was on the verge of burnout in the high tech industry. I knew their had to be something more meaningful out there for me but I didn't know how to find it. Luckily, I had an executive coach who pointed me in the right direction. I left high tech and a few years later became certified as a professional coach. I now specialize in helping others find their ideal careers. I love what I do and I have never looked back! If you are looking for a brighter, more fulfilling professional future, the seven steps process outlined below will help to get you started. Today is a great day to begin the journey toward finding a job you will love!

Step #1: Identify Why You Are Changing Careers

The first step in any career change process is to identify why are looking for a change. It is important to know if you are trying to get away from something or if you are trying to move toward something. Ultimately, it is much more empowering to focus on what you want to move toward as opposed to what you might be trying to escape. It is very difficult to outline your ideal future position if your vision is limited to overcoming the negatives of your current situation. This is your time to dare to dream. Why not dream big? If you are going to make a career change, you might as well keep all of your options open and give yourself the best chance of making a fresh start. This is your chance to find something you will love doing for years to come.

Step # 2: Create a Vision & Specify Your Goals

An important part of finding work you love involves creating a very clear vision of the logistics of your future work situation. You need to be able to definitively answer the following questions. What is your ideal work day schedule? What is your required salary to live comfortably? (For more information on salary and work you love I highly recommend the book “Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin) What is your preferred commute time? What are your ideal positions/tasks? To what managerial level do you want to be reporting? Are you entrepreneur at heart? Would you consider self-employment? Are their any other logistical aspects you need to consider – such as travel required or on-site day care provisions? Try to think through every aspect of a normal day. Don’t be afraid to outline what might feel like unrealistic or pie-in-the-sky options. The purpose here is to get very clear on what it is you want.

Creating this vision and specifying your goals is an integral step toward finding your ideal job. I recommend that my clients spend plenty of time on these questions and write out their answers in a notebook or journal.

Step #3: Re-Connect With Your Interests

So many of my clients have lost touch with their interests. It is not easy for them to identify the things that capture their attention. To help get your self-knowledge juices flowing try to find answers to the following questions over the course of a typical week:

? What is your favorite bookstore section?

? Which sections of the newspaper do you turn to first?

? What magazine subscriptions do you have?

? What were your favorite classes in college?

? What are your hobbies?

? What books to you keep on your bookshelf?

? What great conversations do you remember from parties and social events? What was the topic? Why was it a great conversation?

After keeping track of these things for a week or so you should be able to identify some trends. Can you see some of your interests emerging on a consistent basis? Try to narrow it down to two or three top interests. Don’t worry at this point if they have any possibilities as careers. You are just beginning the self-exploration process. In order to have any hope of finding work you love, you have start by identifying what is interesting for you!

Step #4: Re-Connect With Your Values

Interests and values go together like a lock and a key. Once you have identified some of your favorite interests, the next thing to explore is your values. Your values are your deeply held convictions which compel you into action. Many people become unsatisfied in their careers because one or more of their personal values is not being met. For example, my personal value of work-life balance was not being met in the high tech industry. By leaving that field and opening my own business, I am better able to honor my value of balance. To uncover some of your strongest inner values try to answer some or all of the following questions:

? Who is your favorite famous person? What is it that you admire about them?

? If you never had to work again, what would you spend your time doing? Why?

? If you could solve one world problem what would it be?

? What is your favorite personal accomplishment?

? What are your top 3 movies of all time? What theme do they share?

? What makes you mad?

? What would you want said about you at your funeral?

These questions are likely to take you longer to answer than any of the others so far. That is because your values are at the core of what motivates you in life. When you find work that is in sync with one or more of your values you will feel a great desire to do that work – it will feel more like your “calling” than merely a job. You will gain a sense of importance about the work that you are doing. You will feel that your time is being spent wisely and that your work makes a difference. When you can combine these values-based feelings with working in an area of your interest, you will be well on your way to finding work you love. Try to sum up your answers from the questions in this step and then identify your top three values.

Step #5: Know Your Abilities!

Now you know why you are looking to change careers (better pay? more fulfillment?), what you would like your future work day to look like (nine to five? three weeks vacation? on site gym?), your areas of interest (history? biology? human development?) and your values (education? tenacity? helping others?). The next step in the process is to connect these emotional components with what you are actually hard-wired to do. You can find this out by taking a natural abilities test. I highly recommend abilities testing to all of my clients. There are several sources of abilities testing available. I use The Highlands Ability Battery. I have heard of other people using the Johnson-O’Connor test. You can find these tests via personal coaches, college career centers, state-run career centers etc. Be sure to ask for an abilities test and not a personality or communication style assessment.

Abilities tests define your natural abilities based on timed work-samples. This allows for an objective way of discovering (or affirming) the kind of work to which you are best suited. These tests should also tell you about your preference for introversion or extroversion, your time frame orientation, your preference for abstract or tangible work, and other work-style information. It is important to know and confirm the type of abilities that come quickly and easily to you. When you find work that calls upon these abilities it will not only be easier for you to succeed, you will also gain a greater sense of satisfaction from your work. You can read more about the Highlands Ability Battery at www.vip-coaching.com/highlands.htm

Step #6: Inventory Your Skills.

The sixth step in the process of discovering what kind of work you love is to take stock of your skills. Your skills are the things you have picked up along the way in your career journey (public speaking, computer programming, project management etc.). These are the areas that you have experience in, courses you have taken, on the job training you may have received or any other areas where you feel you have gained competence. You may find it helpful to look at past resumes, project notes and performance reviews to create a satisfactory list of skills you have gained and would like to continue to use in the future. From this comprehensive list, narrow it down to three skill areas that you feel are your strongest.

Step #7: Create A Road Map to Actual Positions.

Finally, you have made it to the last step! By now you should know a lot more about yourself than you did at the beginning of this process. Now is the time to put all of the pieces together and start to define positions. So often when clients first come to me, their natural inclination is to start the career-change process by immediately trying to identify new jobs. They come to me saying things like “maybe I should be nurse” or “I heard that photography is a good career.” I always tell them the same thing: it is best not to look at job titles until you have explored your inner desires, passions, abilities, interests and values. It is best to keep all your options open! You have a better chance of finding work you will truly love if you fully engage in the creativity of this process. You may be surprised about what you uncover!

To complete step number seven, use the information you have collected from steps one through six and put them on a note card in this format:

o Top 3 interests o Top 3 values o Top 3 abilities o Top 3 skills

Once you have created this card, you can start to show it to friends, relatives and anyone else you might meet. Ask them what kind of job this sounds like to them. Do they know anyone who has job like this? If so, perhaps they can help you line up informational interviews to confirm that the job they mentioned would indeed be of interest to you.

This is when you will begin networking in earnest. I had a client who took his card to a trade show and discovered two new job titles that neither of us had ever heard of before. After two informational interviews with people in those positions, it was clear that he had found a whole new career opportunity for himself that neither of us ever would have even known existed! Now he is thrilled to be working in a job he loves. Be thorough, be persistent and be true to yourself and you will find the job of your dreams.

A few final notes about undertaking a career change:

It’s important to be patient with yourself during the career change exploration process. It is like filling a large funnel at the top. You are putting in new information day by day – your reasons for changing, your logistical requirements, your interests, your values, your abilities, your skills etc. What will happen eventually is that one or two job titles will fall through the narrow opening at the bottom of the funnel. The payoff you will receive for investing in getting to know yourself through this seven step career change process is that the job titles you uncover will be most exciting opportunities of your life. You will have finally found work you can truly love.

Be sure you financial situation is stable while you go through the career change process. It is much easier to explore freely when you don’t have to worry about how your bills are going to be paid. Remember, this seven step process is about finding your passion again and figuring out how you can make a contribution to the world. It will need your attention for a little while.

By the way, if you currently unemployed and looking for immediate work, watch out for this trap: just being good at something doesn’t mean you enjoy it or should be doing it! This may be the quickest road to a renewed pay check but don’t confuse this with engaging in a real career change process to find the work you love.

It is normal to be frightened and to worry about being realistic about career choices. After all, we all need to make a living. Whether you are currently working or not, these feelings will naturally come up if you are considering making a major change from the status quo. Let these feelings rise and fall. It’s okay. Talk it out with your friends, your career coach or write about them in your journal. Everyone has these feelings; don’t let them stop you from finding work you love!

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