How do you know what your ideal job is?
What would an ideal job be like? And more importantly what is it? There is a lot of hype out there about finding the ideal job. The current view is you simply must have a driving passion that consumes you. If you don’t have this overarching passion you will be a loser.
There are numerous career tests to tell you what that ideal job is and it almost guarantees you will be successful. Do what you love and the money will follow. I don’t believe this. It’s not passion it’s something else.
I watched a woman come into a job announcing that she “on fire!” She inserted this comment into every staff meeting. At first people bought into it. She could ride on her own hype until she couldn’t. No one was more confused than she was when she wasn’t promoted. She had all that passion.
One of the most passionate group of people I know are actors The average annual salary for an actor is 30K So if you are not on fire what should you be? There are elements that you must have to have an ideal job.
These are the things you are looking for. It needs to challenge you This cannot be an I can do that in my sleep job. Your brain needs to be engaged. You must have problems to solve.
You know what the result should be. You have clear cut goals.
People give you feedback so you know how close you are to achieving that goal. You are not on your own wondering if you understand what is going on.
You understand what piece of the work is your responsibility and you have enough autonomy to complete it.
When you are working, you are completely absorbed in it and time stops. Your concentration is focused. I know you won’t have this every second of the day but you need to have it for much of the task
Butcher, baker candlestick maker it doesn’t matter as long as you have those elements. And notice, emotions are not mentioned. It is the lack of self (self-consciousness, self-involvement) that creates the ideal situation (M Csikszentmihaly)
We are in an epidemic of depression. A depressed person thinks about how they feel to an excess. They think about it a lot and they decide it will continue into their future andthey make up scenarios supporting how they feel. It spreads across their daily activities. If you are depressed at work it is because of your expectations.
If you go into a job to be happy and passionate you are going to be disappointed. The point of the job is the work and losing yourself in the activity of doing the work. This does not guarantee happiness. There will be days of frustration and even failure What it does give is engagement and purpose. And if this engagement is reasonably consistent you will be satisfied I know this isn’t outrageous happiness, it is contentment Outrageous happiness is fleeting contentment is consistent. Lose yourself.