Begin by looking at the position you're currently in. Are you happy where you are? Being discontented doesn't necessarily mean you should change careers entirely. Perhaps you've simply strayed too far from your initial intentions and need to re chart your course. Or economic and societal changes may have blocked the path to your original goal. Or as you've grown, perhaps your goals and needs have changed.
To determine where you stand, ask yourself: Why did I choose this career in the first place? What do I like about it? What do I dislike about it? Is there any way to build more of the things I like into the career (or job) that I already have? Not everyone needs a whole new horse to ride. You may simply need a different (and perhaps more challenging) path to ride it on.
For example, a 40 year old pharmacologist in Chicago had devoted 20 years to academic research on psychogenic drugs. On the surface, it looked like he enjoyed a satisfying and challenging career. As the principal investigator for several grants, he enjoyed senior status and had accumulated an impressive list of research publications. Yet he actually viewed his projects as "assembly line research."
"After a while, I was just plugging new drugs into the same experimental design," he explains. "There was nothing new or challenging about it. It was boring.'
Boredom is a symptom that means something. Regardless of your place in the hierarchy, it means you're either under or wrongly employed. You have more skills and interests than your job can utilize.
Eventually, the pharmacologist grew so frustrated with his situation that he quit. He gave himself a year of play to reconnect with the things he loved to do, since he'd given up many "fun interests" early in life to concentrate on earning a PhD and building an academic career. In that year of leisure, he dis covered that science was still his core interest, However, he decided he needed to apply his skills in a broader (and, for him) more meaningful context, perhaps in consumer research or education.
Professional plateaus present an ideal opportunity to reexamine your needs and values and, if necessary, redirect your career into arenas that will stimulate new growth. Looking backward to see how and where you may have made a wrong turn will allow you to learn from and prevent mistakes before you move forward.
What Else Is Out There?
A 30 year old songwriter who'd had some early success in the entertainment business needed more financial security so he could settle down and start a family. Initially, his impulse was to separate his passion for music from his livelihood, letting the former be just a hobby or avocation. However, I encouraged him to explore more synergistic ways to keep music at the vocational center and still gain greater financial security. Perhaps such a sacrifice wouldn't be necessary.
Picture a wheel with music at the center and visualize what musical endeavors might comprise the spokes: Music is a multibillion dollar industry that has lots of spokes if you take the initiative to uncover them. Zealous research into the music industry helped the songwriter identify alternative ways for him to build a lucrative career around his musical passions. He could work in musical publishing, with music houses, as a manufacturer's rep for musical software companies or in digital editing, for example (you can easily adapt this exercise to fit your own interests).
If you've established a career in an area unrelated to your passions, you can still integrate the two with a little ingenuity. For instance, a banker with strong financial analysis skills re captured his love and commitment to music by landing a job as a CFO for a symphony orchestra.
To discover these kinds of options, you'll need to do two things: first, identify your core interests, values, skills and needs; and second, take the initiative to identify and investigate areas of the job market that best match up with those personal concerns.
Entrepreneurial creativity may be at the center of some of the more original choices.
Most mission driven careerists have a passion to express or create themselves through their work. Often, they fulfill this need in the creative arts or service driven professions. However, it's also possible to convert your interests and loves into money making opportunities by operating your own business.
Consider the now well known story of Bill Gates, whose passion for computer programming became the foundation for Microsoft Corporation, a multibillion dollar West Coast company. Or Debbi Fields, whose knack for making chocolate chip cookies spawned a financial empire and a whole new industry. Now, think about yourself and what you do best. Instead of forever relegating it to the back burner of your life, is there any way to put that talent to work for you?
Meeting the Challenges
Missions help you map your course of action, but they don't substitute for hard work. Rather, they demand it. They are anchors and guideposts that help light the way. Your energy and enthusiasm must still provide the fuel.
The bad news is this: There's no guarantee all your hard work will yield great results. But when your work reflects your ideals and interests, your values will encourage you to excel. This is fertile mental ground for inspiration: a chance to do the best work of your life. Why not give yourself that chance? A mission is a call to action. So it's not surprising that many meaningful adult callings are responses to crises or other unexpected events that emotionally challenge you to respond.
Life can throw you a curveball that reshapes your thinking and opens your eyes to a new direction.
When Candy Lightner's teenage daughter Cari was killed by a hit and run drunk driver, it introduced the former real estate agent to a social injustice she'd never before experienced: the lax laws and punishments surrounding this crime (the man who ran her daughter down received a 2 year sentence and served 16 months).
Philosophically, she'd always believed in trying to make something positive from negative experiences. In practice, it was a real challenge to channel her grief and rage productively. Within a few short weeks of her daughter's death, however, Lightner had her answer.
In a conversation with friends, she expressed a desire to "do something about this" meaning inform the public of a social injustice and garner support to change the laws. Her grief and outrage became the catalyst to form Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), an activist organization that has succeeded in its objective to crack down on drunk drivers.
Like other mission driven careerists, she describes her pursuit as something she felt compelled to do. In fact, she says, "I had no choice."
Her success with MADD helped heal the pain and accomplish something very worthwhile. But in the process, she discovered that she didn't want to make a career out of being a grieving mother. Instead, she used her experience to learn something important about herself: that, for her, fulfillment comes from commitment to an issue. One of her causes now is peace in the Middle East, and she's become president of the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee in Washington, DC.
