After yesterday's rather depressing post, I thought I would share something a bit more positive today :) A few weeks ago, I discovered that the City Business Library in London holds free seminars on everything from How to Treble your Reading Speed to How to be a Director (check it their website here: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/cbl). This was a great find for me as its FREE and all the topics are pretty relevant to where I am at the moment.
This morning I attended a seminar titled "How To Create Your Dream Career" presented by a career coach called Susan Andrewes. The seminar was targeted at anyone who is tired and just wants to find out how to get that dream career - that calling/passion that can also make them a living. The presenter told us how, 4 years ago, she decided to walk away from a job she hated. No plan. No dream. Just a feeling that there had to be something out there she could do and enjoy (sound familiar?). Today, she is doing what she absolutely loves, gets paid for it and is helping others to do the same.
She started off the seminar by asking us the following:
- What do you want to create in your life? We all have the capacity to create something and that is the key to living the dream. It doesn't have to be the next Eiffel Tower or the next best-selling novel. It just something we would be passionate about.
- What would you love to get paid to do? If you were to assume that all jobs were paid the same, what would you do? Interesting way to think of this, right? One of the participants said she loved playing with dogs and would love to get paid playing with dogs, someone else said they loved socialising and would love a job where they could socialise.
I really had to think hard about these questions, if I am honest. What do I enjoy? There was that temptation to get real, and rational, and think of actual jobs that I could do. Its about thinking of things that you WANT to do and not things that you think you SHOULD be doing. So let's say you love sleeping and shopping, you might ask how would you create anything from that? How can that be a job? How can you get paid?
This is where she asked us to change our way of thinking - a dream job is possible if you think out of the box. It may not necessarily be about one particular thing but a combination of them. So, for example, if you love to sleep and shop, you can become a personal shopper or a shopping consultant, where you determining the hours you want to work. So you can sleep till 1pm every day and still get paid! Seems pretty simple right?
From there she asked what was stopping us from pursuing our dreams? All of us gave the excuses most people would give i.e. no money, lack of experience, no track record, lack of confidence, fear etc. These reasons/excuses may be valid but they will always keep you trapped. One of my key fears has been that of not having enough experience. To clarify, I have experience in doing things I don't enjoy, and not enough in what I love. But should that stop me from pursuing what I want to do?
In conclusion, she encouraged us to to really think about these questions and answer them honestly and without fear. Step out of the box and THINK BIG. She also encouraged us to start seeing the value within ourselves and visioning ourselves as individual businesses providing a service. As a business, you go out there and find the work you want, not the other way round. If all we can do is sit and hope the right job/opportunity will come along, we allow outside world to control us and we become "victims"...my last post gives testament to how it feels to be a victim of the system.
So next step for me: to find what I love doing and how make it into my career.
She ended off with this excellent quote from T. S. Elliot:
'If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.'
For more information about Susan, go to www.getajobyoulove.com
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