Finding Work you Love

Most people want to have a career they love.  Finding what you love to do can be scary business and frustrating at times.  People feel frustrated because they do not know what type of work would make them happy.  Part of the frustration comes from the expectation that it should be easy to know what you love to do.

I often tell people finding work you love is like finding the right romantic partner.  For some people it falls into their lap but for the rest it is not so simple.  There is a lot of trial and error.  You date a lot of wrong partners to figure out what you need in a partner to lead you to the perfect partner.  Finding work you love is a very similar process.

You may work a lot of jobs that you perceive as putting you off track or not “right”.  Those jobs usually end up being exactly what you needed to discover what you love.  Sometimes knowing what you don’t like about a job is what gets you closer to knowing what you do like, just like in dating.

While I was building my business I worked as a waitress until the business was self-sufficient.  It was not easy to stay committed to the work I loved while working two jobs.  There were times when I resented working so much and putting all my money into a new business.

When I was waitressing I felt resentful because I thought that someone with my education level should not being waitressing.  I must confess I was a bit arrogant toward waitressing in the beginning.  It took a lot of patience and acceptance on my part to love what I was doing.

I realized that waitressing was allowing me to fulfill my purpose and mission I began to I love it.  There came a point when I felt grateful and privileged for the job and the people I worked with.

Once you accept where you are and learn what you need to, you will move on.  Resisting where you are now or making it wrong is what keeps you stuck.  When I fully accepted waitressing and no longer resented it I ended up not needing to waitress much longer.

I remember even though I knew I wanted to be a coach I had no idea who I wanted to coach or what problem I wanted to help people solve.  I was so frustrated and stressed at times because no matter how much I tried to “figure it out” I always felt more lost.

Another important tip is to let go of trying to “figure it out”.  If you can just let yourself be led and follow your intuition things will be much smoother.  When I stopped trying to “figure it out” that is when it was all revealed to me.  I still explored and was curious but I stopped being attached to how it should look or a date by when I should know who I was meant to serve.

Also feeling confident is important to discovering work you love.  Know that what you are doing is right for you.  Feel confident that the mistakes, unforeseen failures, or breakdowns are all part of getting you to the work you love.  Other people may doubt you but you must be steadfast in knowing you are on your path even if it seems like things are completely out of whack.

What helped me along my path and journey was being open and flexible.  Through this exploration I discovered I love speaking publicly.  Allowing me to explore and discover what was out there and try on new hats helped me develop so many ways of expressing my purpose.  Do not hold a fixed view of yourself and what you think you are capable of.  Allow yourself to play many roles and be flexible.

There is another common belief that gets in the way of finding work you love which is you cannot make money doing what you love.  Many people feel doing what they love is like hobby or occurs as “easy” so they cannot get paid well for it.

You want to challenge that belief because it does not make sense.  When you are doing what you love your productivity and creativity go up and the overall quality of the work you do.  Which means your work becomes more valuable.  Most people I meet who do what they love make a lot of money.  Maybe you want to find some people who are wealthy at doing work they love so you can have proof that it is possible for you. 

Your assignment for this week:

1.  Write out all the things you love doing.  That means writing your hobbies, natural talents, passions, and interests etc.  No matter how absurd it may feel or seem write it.

2.  Get out there and share your list with people.  Focus on sharing what it is you love about what you wrote on your list.

3.  Research: talk to people in the industry or similar industry.  Ask them how they did it.

4.  Be flexible and creative.  It is when you are relaxed and free that things fall into place.  Do not get caught up in the money or how ridiculous people may think you are.  Just have fun and be creative.

Melisa