Member Article

How to identify what you love

Not so long ago, the perception of what makes a great career concernedgetting into the professions and steadily rising through the ranks as a specialist in your area. Parents worked hard to enable their children to study and become managers, lawyers, doctors and engineers. But the world of work is changing and with it our aspirations for our working lives.

The three keys that open the door to doing what you love

There are three key factors influencing this shift.

Key 1: Technology has transformed our working lives by making it possible to work from anywhere and be part of a virtual team.

Key 2: The death of ‘the job for life’. Businesses are increasingly offering fixed term contract roles over permanent ones, cutting down on their staffing costs and working in a more project-based fashion.

Key 3: Our own aspirations have changed. We are less concerned with status and more interested in fulfilment, meaning and purpose.

Let’s look at these three keys in more detail.

1. Tech-tastic!

Take a quick look around you. Wherever you are reading this, you are accessing my words through the power of the Internet. You are most likely to be reading this on a tablet, laptop or phone, rather than in hard copy. You have a library at your fingertips as well as a web of real time connections stretching across the globe. We can now videoconference to collaborate with colleagues we have never met in person.

We can commission work from sub-contractors halfway across the world. Technology has democratised our income generation as ‘solopreneurs’ or freelancers too. With the presence of online marketplaces we can buy and sell goods and services online without the need for a middleman. In an afternoon, even the technophobes among us could use simple online tools to open your own virtual shop and broadcast your services to the globe, in less than 24 hours.

2. Variety is the spice of life

Ten years ago, I first began working remotely. I left the Home Office Fast Stream and started working for a small, virtual consultancy. I was thrilled by the idea of being able to work in my pyjamas and largely avoid the daily commute. Now, thousands of us are able to do this every day. Once they did the sums, companies realised they could save millions through trusting people to work independently.

In addition, more and more companies are reducing their in-house teams and subcontracting core parts of their work out to freelancers, interims and remotely based project managers. While this ‘modus operandi’ for film production crews and design agencies, it is a phenomenon that is just beginning to be adopted a lot more widely across a range of industries.

This will mean that, in the years to come, we are likely to be a lot more mobile – transferring our skill set to a variety of different organisations within a short space of time. Our membership of each company or organisation is likely to have a shorter lifespan.

The portfolio career – the idea of combining one or more jobs or freelance opportunities at any one time, has also risen in popularity alongside this shift. More and more people are enjoying the flexibility of having work fit around them. Or they are balancing up the ‘proper professional job’ with a moonlighting career in something more ‘light-hearted’ using the ‘proper job’ to fund their passion.

3. Do what you love

Careers with a conscience that align with out values and sense of self are becoming an expectation rather than an aspiration. Our desire to individuate has never been stronger. With our basic needs met, many of us are in the tremendously fortunate position of being able to make choices based on what most matters to us. Indeed, we are even able to carve out our unique niche in the world – creating job roles that did not exist just a few years ago, designed specifically for who we are and how we are.

With this in mind, here are three questions to ask yourself when exploring your career shifting options.

Where do I want to be and how do I want to spend my time? Online, face to face, with groups, one to one or on my own? Outdoors or in? What is my dream work location?

(I have a coaching client who will be taking her personal stylist business to Bali via video conferencing at the beach.)

What is the life experience that I am looking for? What are the feelings Iwant to have about my work and the balance of activities/priorities in my life?

(Feeling excited about turning up to work every day makes a crucial difference to our lives. Start with the ‘what experience’ question before focussing in on the ‘how to get it’.)

What really matters to me? What would I want to leave as my legacy? How can I share my passion with others? (Everyone I work with starts here – we all have a unique sense of what creates meaning for us. The ideal is to create a job that allows us to express that every single day.)

Erica Sosna is The Life Project Coach and author of Your Life Plan. She has been working with career changers and business start-ups for over eight years, helping hundreds of people to turn their passions into profitable businesses and sparky careers. She has incarnated as a Civil Servant, Management Consultant, Storyteller, Researcher and Equalities Specialist before settling on a career as a writer, speaker and coach in personal transformation. Erica offers one-to-one coaching, workshops and retreats to career shifters worldwide and advises Governments and the world’s top universities on improving employability and transferable skills.

www.thelifeproject.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Erica Sosna .