Finding the Perfect Job
Photo by
Alex Stoddard
Today I received an email from a man named Nick (not his real name) who wants help finding a job. He has two different resumes, one for his “business life” and one for his “adventure life”.
As I browsed through his resumes, his many accomplishments stood out. So I began to wonder why Nick needed my help to find a job? He certainly has his pick of fields from which to choose.
Then it dawned on me. If Nick was a carpenter and only a carpenter, he would search for carpenter jobs. Easy. But, since he is an adventurer as well as a business man with many accomplishments in various fields, the issue really was finding the direction, not finding the job.
And most adventurers have irons in many fires. In fact, many people have irons in many fires. It’s hard to know which road to take when there are so many paths. It creates brain chaos, overload, overwhelm and ultimately paralysis.
When life has so many grand roads to follow it’s hard to follow just one. If there is no clarity of purpose, passion and direction, it’s impossible to find success. If you are running in a million directions, how can the universe begin to align and create opportunities for choosing?
Realigning Passion with Direction – A Simple Exercise
I completely related to the dilemma facing Nick. Every few months, I literally have to sit down with pen and paper and refocus. I have to realign my passion and my direction.
Here is a simple exercise I use to keep focus and course correct along the way:
- In a column I write down a list of everything I want to accomplish in life, my greatest passions. What do I want to be, do, and have?
- In a second column, I write down exactly what I am doing that is moving me in that direction.
- In a third column, I write down exactly what I am doing that is NOT moving me in that direction.
Then I compare and see if I am moving down the path of alignment with my passion. Finally and most importantly I course correct.
It’s like following a compass path. When you see that you are deviating from the course, turn back and realign the compass. The more often you do this the straighter your course will be. And the shortest distance between two points will always be a straight line.
Focus
I am a firm believer that “Whatever you want, wants you”. If you have clarity of purpose and focus your energy toward aligning your passion and your direction, you will be successful. Why? Because your thinking will be clear enough to see opportunities that you otherwise would have missed. Then you can take action. Simply wishing will not make it so.
The past few months I’ve had so many irons in so many fires, I feel like I’ve been running in circles to keep them all hot. My mood was deteriorating because I wasn’t finding success in any of my pursuits.
I sat down and did the realignment exercise, course corrected, and focused back on what the next six to eight months will look like.
I realized I simply was trying to do too many things and therefore not accomplishing any. I pushed many projects to the back burner. I figured out what was important to me now.
And as my focus narrowed, life began to align again. I landed a large contract adventure job, which will allow me to fund an investment property I have been searching for. Between the job and the property, I will be free to spend several months traveling and diving in SE Asia, which is on my list for 2013.
So it is all falling into place through realigning the passion with direction and then narrowing perception and focusing in on the exact outcome. I am working sequentially on projects and completing one before the next, projects that are in line with my passion.
Finding the Perfect Job
After this realization, I sat down to respond to Nick. While Nick is looking for the perfect job, his resumes don’t give clues to which direction he wants to go.
Taking some time to hone his passion and direction, the path will become clear. From there, he can move down a defined road to locating and landing that perfect job and live his passionate life.
Fabulous post! Cannot wait to check your site out too. As Thoreau says, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Your simple three step exercise is a very powerful tool for correcting course. I think it is just human to stray a bit, but we can and should short circuit the straying. My wife and I love to sit down and check to see if we are still indeed aligned or need aligning.
This was a great reading. I can completely relate and though now i have much more clarity about my direction, the exercise with threee columns is something that can benefit me too. Thanks!
Hi Carin,
Great article!
I agree that it’s important to focus. If you don’t know what you want to do, you won’t be able to focus. However, if you do know what you want to do, it’s important to focus on making your dreams come true. For example, if you want to become a graphic designer, it would be important to immerse yourself in the graphic design world. Get to know top graphic designers, heck, you could even interview them for your blog. Also, it would be important to stay current with the latest in graphic design. This means taking classes and workshops.
The perfect or business is out there. You just have to find it and be ready to commit to it.
“Whatever you want, wants you.”
What a powerful quote, and the exercises you gave for focus and clarity are awesome, can’t wait to put them into practice!
Hi Carin! I love that your focus exercise has a What I am I Doing That is NOT Moving Me in that Direction column. So often I used to feel like I was working so hard on X and not getting where I needed to with it. It was because I had to eliminate Y and Z!
I love this exercise – it’s so good to do regularly too, whenever you’re expending lots of energy but not really getting where you want to be. How often I’ve been in that position – working so hard but not really getting anywhere, and ending up drained and frustrated.
By centering myself and refocusing on my true purpose life becomes easy again – when purpose, values and action are aligned life become effortless. thank you
Like Jo, I really like the exercise; very revealing. Want to share this with our local Law of Attraction meetup group. Thanks for the insightful article!
That’s brilliant, Carin!
I regularly need to realign with my passion, what with being a life coach and personal development blogger. And while I use a few different approaches, I’ve never thought of this simple 3-step one.
I’ll give it a try next time, and see how it works for me.
Thanks for your post. I myself am experiencing some unhappiness in the job I wanted for so long (Graphic Designer) I love the creativity part but what I struggle with is being told what to do. At times I don’t feel I’m good at what I do because I get told how to do things.
And when it comes to design at times it’s just relative, other people have different ideas of what looks good and there is not right or wrong.
I wonder if this is the place for me, maybe another firm would be better or whether it would be the same there. I wonder if the industry is too much, the pace to fast.
I did your excersise and what resulted was I want to be my own boss and have a family. the fear creeps in, can I do that? But no body would be telling me what to do! :).
Thanks again Carin, I will get there and when I do I know it will be right because it will make me happy and excited.
This article could not have come at a better time for me. I just got laid off from my job yesterday but for years I feel like I just have too many interests to pin down. This leaves me feeling overwhelmed and scattered; as a result, nothing gets done. I look forward to trying the exercise and look forward to reading future posts. Thank you.