Step 10. Life's 5th INGREDIENT: Your Career.

Just like you have done for the previous life ingredients, if you have been following the recipe laid out in this site? List the detail of WHAT it is that you do want – not the HOW’s, the how’s will come later in the ‘BAKING’ part of this recipe.

The list below is intended to prompt you to think about the important details that add up to you being happy with what you do.

• PLACE: You might love what you do, just not where you currently do it! So might want to make wishes for changing the where.
• PEOPLE: The folk that you work alongside you spend more time with potentially than your loved ones so again you might want to make wishes in this area too.
• PAY: Are you feeling valued? If not mark down your desired amount.
• PROGRESSION: Where are you headed? Think BIG picture, note down where you wish to be in 5 and 10 years.
• COMMUTE: How long do you wish to spend each week – and year – getting to and from work? Do you wish to walk, bike, train it or drive there? Your commute affects your wellbeing. The office of national statistics in 2014 found that commuters are more likely to be anxious and dissatisfied than those people who do not travel even if they are paid more.

If you have read most of this recipe for ‘creating BRILLIANCE & many moments of BLISS’ you will know that the key message of it and the intention of Good-VibeNation is to examine how you are spending your most precious gift…the gift we all share; TIME.

This ingredient, our career can be the one that takes up the most of our time, given that the majority of people spend over 35hrs and 5 days each week working somehow to make a living, which is about 2000 hours every year. (Eeek that is a BIG number when you see it in black and white!)If you wonder why career is 5th on the list of life’s ingredients, this is simply because to share my method for finding a happy path, I am listing the ingredients in the order that I started to sort them out for myself, back in 2008. Today in 2014 career comes bottom of my list in terms of importance right now, I now see it just as a means to pay for my wonderful life!

This mind set is a HUGE rebalancing for me of my priorities; 4 years ago my job was a major drain on my time and energy. When I started to take an honest look at my life in 2008, I had to admit to myself that I was working all the hours only for the money and that I actually detested most things about it! I was numbed by the amount on my payslip to the emotional cost it was taking from me. I remember the Sunday night sharp slump in my VIBE and the complete dread I felt each day getting out of bed to face what might be ahead of me. Cringing at how I had made myself get into this situation. I had not thought enough about my needs and had chosen solely to follow money and not my day to day happiness. I was more concerned about pride and doing what is expected e.g. going to uni to get a good job to then buy a house, have a family. Which I guess is natural since success in our society is measured so much on a job title, the car you drive, where you live and so on. Do you find too that the first thing most people ask you is “what do you do?” So yes in my twenties I had not yet thought high enough for my own future, I certainly prioritised my ego over my happiness, which came at a great cost to my freedom of time and more importantly of mind. 

It is SO important for our happiness to ensure that this life ingredient is thought about, chosen well and ideally chosen at a young age. It ideally will be planned well to ensure that we end up in roles that mean that we are in our element.

For example – if we were to liken our self to fish – are we swimming in the right pond for us? –  For our nature, comfort and our needs?  They say in corporate training that if you do a role that honours your natural talents you are 6 times more likely to be effective at and happy doing that role! I really hope that reading this you can say that “yes, this is me!”

Or do you choose to focus solely on money and put yourself out of your element? I did this for years in my 20s due to my own low self-worth, lack of guidance in my teens and basically having not dreamt about my future or aimed high enough. I felt like a fish out of water, working more than 10 hours a day in a corporate sales position that I had absolutely no passion for. I let my job completely stress me out to the point of burn out. Which is a stark contrast to now where I have a work life balance, I am now so happy and feel like a completely different person simply from choosing well for what I do.

 ACTION: Ask yourself the following questions as you write out what you want for this important part of your life:

• Are you currently swimming in the right pond for you?
• Do you feel respected and valued by the company & people you work with?
• Are you happy with what you do?
• Do you know what you wish to do?
• Do you care about what you do?
• Do you feel satisfied in what you do?
• …Does it matter to you to care about or feel satisfied about what you do?

Answering these questions is important to help you to begin to think about, if necessary what it is that you would enjoy and wish to move towards.  

If you are not where you wish to  that is ok a lot of people are not. It is just important to prioritise your happiness, to see beyond the situation you are in and believe that better can be true for you if you are willing make some changes.

It is not right to feel a sick at the thought of work on a Sunday night!

Life is too short to allow yourself to feel completely drained by a job. Now, I am not saying that life has to be upbeat and jolly 100% of the time – that of course is not realistic, or that folk do not wish that the weekend could go on and on. What I mean is that if your job is upsetting you and monopolising your mind – that you are buzzed out – then it might be an idea to consider other options.

My  friend Bousty told me a golden nugget of advice when I wanted to get balance in my life and to no longer  at the mercy of work…to earn a living on path towards dreams by doing something that is neutral or uplifting – just not draining!

Naturally to find the right place and position for you can take time, a few adjustments possibly study and leaps from different roles and companies may be required to find your happy place. So try to patient – the journey will  worth making!

I myself have had a few jumps to find a role that feels mainly neutral and very often uplifting working as a PA. I left sales, since I found it draining in 2010 to try working for a wonderful children’s charity The Rainbow Trust. I did not however, factor in the emotional strain this would bring me or indeed quite how sensitive I am. I put myself under immense pressure to raise funds for an amazing cause, finding it difficult to switch off or TO detach from the heart breaking stories of the families being supported through the loss of their wee ones. I had a migraine most days and 9 months – of over thinking it all – later, was forced to make the hardest decision of my career to date, to move on. Scared to make another ‘error’ and detour on my path and desperate to find the right path for me I gave myself some time out. I was fortunate to be able to take the summer of 2012 off where I carved out time to think and to question myself to assess what I was naturally good at. This time was so special; I was not focused on work for the first time since graduating – my head had space in it to imagine and as a complete surprise to me, I started to get ideas for writing children’s stories. This is now my dream career, to see little ones enjoying my work and in doing so to be able to raise more money for Rainbow and for the protection of s!

IF YOU FEEL UNSURE ABOUT OR OUT OF SORTS WITH YOUR WORK… 

I do understand how horrid it can  to not know what you want to do – to feel in limbo and without a purpose. I was there for years!

I also understand how horrid it is to feel stuck in a place that is just hard.  it the people, place, your boss or the role that is totally not on your wavelength. Where things just don’t feel right, it can really get you down!

I just know that as hard as it may seem at these times, the best thing – despite how hard it feels – is to pick your chin up from the floor or wherever you feel you are. Stop trying to bury your head in the sand about the situation you are in. To ignore it will just make it feel worse and most likely knock your confidence further, which just makes it much harder to move on. It may be well and true that by sticking at a job you might get a promotion or some other escape in time – but what about the now?!

How long and how many low VIBES – how much pain are you willing to allow yourself to take? How much time will you give to something that drains you? – I gave 7 years – I hope you will cop on sooner if need 

WORK IS ONE PART OF YOUR WHOLE LIFE…

Try to look up see the bigger picture that work is just one aspect of your life – that having the courage to make changes will make your whole life better.

I meet so many people who are in the same situation that I found myself, fellow fish out of water! – bottom line I tell them is that we do not need to wait for someone else to give us permission, to tell us that we should be happy in our work.

Of course no one else will. You are the driver of your own life. So if this resonates with you stop being a passenger!

My Star’s grandparents are from China, when we moved in together in 2011 one of his additions to our pad was their figure of Confucius – whom I had never heard of before. As you do, I worked the magic of google on him finding the following quote at the perfect time. I had left the charity in 2012 feeling lost and was first questioning what it was that I wanted for this ingredient in my own birthday book

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.  

How true is that! – The annoyingly hard part though can be to work out what it is that you will love?

How work out what you love?

Increase self-awareness – to know yourself is the key to opening new doors – doors leading to your hearts desires! To know and to  yourself, what you want,  you have to know yourself – your true nature – not the social mask that you might have created in order to get by or to fit in!

Tips to work out what you love to complete your wishes for your career.