Hate Your Job? How to Escape to a New Career

Do you hate your job? I did, fifteen years ago. Stressed, poorly rewarded and unappreciated, I found that simply packing my bag and leaving for work gave me a headache. It wasn’t just the company I was working for that was the problem. I was simply in the wrong career.

Trouble was, at the time, I really had no idea what else I might do. The internet was in its infancy so browsing sites like Classifind.com.au for new opportunities wasn’t an option. Nor was googling for ideas. It was very difficult to think outside the narrow bounds of the career I had more or less fallen in to.

Thankfully I did manage to turn things around. I have now found work that I can get paid for and enjoy. But looking back over those years has prompted me to rethink the way we go about choosing jobs and careers, and in fact the way we go about setting ourselves goal more broadly.

Goal Setting has become to Complex

My main conclusion is that goal setting has become too complex and scientific. Importantly, the idea of the 'dream' has become lost.

Goal-setting books and websites - and there are many of them - tell us that, as individuals, we should be making detailed career plans in order to achieve our goals. They advocate  the steady rung-by-rung climb up the ladder to the position ultimately sought after.

This ‘orderly approach’ thinking has a place, but it needs a context.

Back in that unhappy period, I struggled to set meaningful goals for myself. I remember being encouraged to write my goals down. To plan out 1 year, 3 year and 10 year goals. But I felt so trapped in the job I disliked - and so unclear about what I wanted to do as an alternative - that setting specific and measurable goals was impossible.

Having a dream is a starting point

What I did have was a dream: a very fuzzy idea of what I might want to do. For many years - since very early in my career - I had felt that I wanted to make a difference. To be in a situation to have a positive influence on peoples' lives. I also knew I wanted more variety (I hate routine). And I had always admired genuine 'experts': those who not only knew their speciality really well but also knew how to put it into practice.

Deep down I knew these were things I wanted. Trouble was, I couldn’t get them in my career at the time and no amount of goal setting would see me move towards them. I just didn’t have enough detail to build a detailed plan on. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I now realize that this dream was fundamental to giving me the courage to break out of the bind I was in.

It was the dream that helped me see obscure opportunities when they came my way. And it was the dream that gave me the courage to take risks and actually pursue jobs which some others thought a bit mad.

Building a satisfying career takes time

It has taken many years, and there have been twists and turns along the way. But I am now working from a solid foundation. As my dream has gained sharper focus, I can more readily work on more concrete, ‘by the book’, step-by-step goals.

Goals are important - both for you as an individual and for your business. But goals are like the frame of a house. They need to be built on a solid foundation. Your dream is that foundation. Your dream is the simplest goal.