This subject comes up because, as part of my career counseling program, I ask people about their hobbies and leisure activities. Such activities are a very concrete clue to where a person's true talents and abilities lie, since few of us spend our free time doing those things we do not enjoy or are not good at.
However, many people who have become unhappy in their careers have let their hobbies decline. They become "couch potatoes," a term that has become something of a joke in our society but which, in my opinion, underlies a serious dissatisfaction with life and, more specifically, with one's job.
Not only are hobbies a clue to innate talents, the lack of hobbies is indicative of career problems.
Now there are those of us who spend 13 or 14 hours a day on the job and who protest that we have no time for hobbies or personal interests. While there are, no doubt, people who genuinely need to spend that much time at work, I suspect a far greater number who do so simply might not be capable of handling their workload in a more reasonable time or have allowed themselves to become unreasonably overtaxed.
In either case, it's a formula for disaster. To focus myopically on our jobs is to lose our personal identity. Even if you love your job, you still need to find hobbies that take your mind away from it, and you still need to find time for vacations.
The number of people I meet who tell me they have not taken a vacation in five years is astonishing. And they say so with great pride! Vacations are not a luxury; they are, rather, a necessity. Smart employers should require that their employees take vacations.
People also need to think in terms of personal growth outside the job. This can take two forms: One is self-improvement via community college courses or ongoing professional training. People who do not want to take the time to improve the skills they use on the job should seriously question whether they are on the right career path.
This need not necessarily mean taking classes directly related to what you do all day. They could be classes that are only peripherally related or that will give you skills that could make you more valuable to your employer. The second avenue to personal growth is taking the experience you have gained in your vocation and applying it to an avocation. Again, if you find this too distasteful to consider seriously, you might be in the wrong job. This is not to suggest that you should find some way to do in your spare time exactly what you do on the job. But it's possible to find connections between the two.
For instance, one of my clients is in the public relations field, a field that requires strong writing and verbal communication skills. As he honed these skills on the job, he was able to transfer them to his spare time, writing plays and acting with a number of area theater companies.
In other words, the skills he developed on the job were applied to his spare time, where they were honed even farther and then reapplied to his job.
Things do not always work in such perfect harmony, of course. Another client with whom I worked many years ago was a heavy-equipment operator. In his spare time, he was an accomplished artist who produced magnificent oil paintings.
The bottom line is that for any of us to be truly happy with our careers, there must be a balance between work, hobbies and self-improvement. That balance will be different for each of us and we cannot look to someone else to tell us what it is. Rather, it's something we must find ourselves. It's well worth the effort.
Generally, we find that when people come to career consultants, they really do not know what they need for their careers. It's pretty much the same when we go to a physician or a lawyer: We want to find out what we need. Get a few opinions and you'll begin to know.
Once you start shopping around for a career consultant, it should be to determine what ranges of service are available, what is pertinent to your current needs, and where you can have the kind of relationship which will be productive for you.
Ask how long the firm has been in business. I do not want to suggest that a newcomer to the market cannot do an excellent job for you, but someone who has been in business for ten years is more likely to be legitimate than someone whose doors have been open only a few months.
Ask for references. While a reputable firm will not want to have its clients contacted indiscriminately, it should be willing to do so after preliminary steps permit you to say that you are seriously interested in the services.
