I’ve heard various estimates about the number of people who are dissatisfied with their job but I’ve never heard a figure lower than 70%! That’s very depressing. It means that at least 7 out of 10 people are spending a major part of their waking lives doing something they don’t like. I’m sure the medical profession would class that as ‘insanity’ were it not for the fact that even highly paid professionals like psychiatrists can also find themselves in the same position! So what’s wrong with us all, why are so many of us in the wrong job?

Let’s look at a couple of theories and see if we can figure it out:

Theory 1 – ‘There aren’t enough enjoyable jobs to go around’.

Yes, that would explain it. We’ve all tried extremely hard to get a job we love but it’s too competitive and we had to settle for something else, right? Hang on a minute though, how many of us knew what we wanted to be when we left school? Most of my friends had no idea and it’s hard to go after your dream job if you don’t know what it is. But supposing you did know what you wanted to be, did you actually make a serious and sustained effort to achieve your goal? Did you even believe you could make it? Or were you encouraged to be ‘more realistic’ and get a job or career with ‘good prospects’? Ok, we’re going to struggle to prove this theory because in all honesty, how many of us have actually ever tried (seriously) to get a job we love? Not many I’m guessing.

Theory 2 – ’Enjoyable jobs don’t pay well so we have to get boring jobs in order to be happy….’

Hmm, something doesn’t sound quite right there. Actually, I think there may be two problems with that theory. First of all, it’s a bit of a sweeping statement to say that enjoyable jobs don’t pay well. Some of them can pay extremely well, especially if you’re good at them.  And secondly, trading our passions and dreams for a safe, steady, well-paid job, is not a recipe for happiness. It’s simply a waste of our talent in most cases, which is ironic because that’s the one thing most likely to produce the success and security we desire.

Ok, enough of the theories; if you really want to know why so many people are not doing a job they love, I have a simple exercise you can do that will reveal a lot.

Just take a look at how you ended up in your current job. What were the circumstances and events that led you here? Or more to the point, what were the decisions and actions you took (…or didn’t take) at various points along the way? Perhaps even more important than that: why did you take those decisions and actions? Now we’re starting to get to the heart of the problem. You see, the big reason why most of us aren’t doing a job we love is simply that our mindset has never been developed in a way that helps us to achieve that goal. It’s been developed to ‘play safe’ by focussing on career paths with ‘good prospects’ or that provide a reasonable level of job security. Ironically, this approach can leave us more at risk in today’s fast moving and highly flexible environment. To be ‘safe’ today, you need to play to your strengths. That means doing work that you are good at and that you are passionate about. Only then will you be able to truly shine at what you do and make a real difference to your employers/customers.

So my Top Tip for getting a job you love is to let your natural strengths and passions be your compass. They will guide you to the work you truly love. Or, to put it another way; let your heart tell you what and why and your head tell you how.

Take Care,

Ian Walton.

P.S. If you’ve got 15 mins to spare, have a look at the new video I’ve put on the RightWork4ME home page. It explains more about the mindset issues we have with getting a job we love and the most effective way to overcome them and make our dream a reality.