Creating Your Ideal Job

“Whatever you do in this life, take time to sit quietly and let the world tell you what it needs from you.  Take a moment to honestly understand what your gifts are – you all have them.  The way you choose to live your life brings meaning to your life.” 

~ Ann Reed

 It is amazing to me the number of people in this world who stay in jobs that they are miserable doing.  They often rationalize that must make the best of it, but in refusing to consider the options that are right before them, they may not even realize what the “best” is.  When you allow yourself to stagnate, ignoring the impulses and desires you may have to bust out of your self created constraints, you also unintentionally block the energy that you could be freeing up in those who surround you, whether they be your direct reports, your peers, your customers, your family members, or even your boss.  You do not do the world any favors by playing small.

You possess an inborn talent that allows you to do something in a way that no one else can.  When you find this talent and apply it to an area of opportunity or need within an organization, you can create a job for yourself that will reward you with immense gratification and joy.  You will be able to achieve extraordinary results with ease, and accomplish things that no one previously realized was possible.  And you will serve a vital function for the organization or community of which you are a part, which will in turn provide you with a deep sense of meaning and purpose.

The key to doing this is to pay attention to what you work on that gives you extreme satisfaction and joy and seems to come naturally to you.  It’s easy to downplay our strengths – to rationalize that they are no big deal, that everyone can do what you believe are silly little things as well as you can.  The truth is that not only can not everybody do those things with the level of skill and quality of results that you can, but also that not everybody would want to.

Creating your ideal job or opportunity is a lot like looking for the perfect candidate for a job – except in reverse.  When companies look to hire someone, they do well to spend some time identifying the specific qualifications the ideal candidate will possess – attributes, experience, behaviors, styles, skills, etc.  When creating the ideal opportunity, you are that ideal candidate spelling out the distinct responsibilities and type of work that would be a perfect match for your talents.  The more specific and concrete the job description and ideal candidate description, the more likely a company will find their person.  And the more specific and concrete your picture of the ideal opportunity for you, the more likely it will come finding you.

Even if all you can begin to do right now is entertain the idea that perhaps there is something grander out there for you, that is aligned with your talent, interests and passion, you will begin to mobilize energy in ways you could not before.  The more you can inwardly make it real for yourself, the more it will outwardly come to be.  As you move toward unleashing your true talent and being open to the opportunities that begin to present themselves to you, you will see the way to lead others –  inspiring them to bring out the best in themselves by giving them an example of how it is done.

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