The Best Time to Make a Career Change to your Dream Job is 20 Years Ago and Today

It's time to make a dramatic career change to your dream job! If you don't jump out of bed every work day when the alarm goes off eager to do some work, you are likely not all that enthusiastic about your job.

Perhaps you complain, roll over, and contemplate whether you can get away with calling in sick for the third time this month. In this case, it is quite clear that you need to find something more challenging and satisfying. A dream job will do the trick.

Here's the bottom line: The best time to pursue your dream career is twenty years ago and today!

You don't necessarily have to move on today. Indeed, it is wise not to jump straight into something immediately. But today is the day that you should start taking steps to discover your dream job.

Business Week magazine recently surveyed 500 American business executives about their job satisfaction. Surprisingly, almost three-quarters (72 percent) were not in their dream jobs.

The first question is: What would executives rather be doing? Many, in fact, named creative professions when asked about their fantasy careers.

Top Ten Dream Career Choices of Business Executives
1. Entertainment manager or events producer
2. Winemaker or brewmaster
3, Chef
4. Restaurateur
5, Pilot
6. Golf pro
7. Professional athlete
8. Rock star
9. Neurosurgeon
10. Bed-and-breakfast-inn owner/operator

The second question is: Why don't more executives move on to something better if they are not in their dream careers? Clearly, most executives are trapped in the corporate system and don't have the guts to do something different.

Yet many ordinary people with fewer skills and financial resources than corporate executives have managed to leave corporate life to pursue dream careers. These ordinary people have become happier, wealthier, freer, and more satisfied in their lives.

One reason why so many individuals end up in distasteful work is that too many get caught up on the money side of careers. They see it as a choice between "love the work you do in poverty" or "hate the work you do in abundance."

Sadly, most people believe that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Some of us know otherwise we have gotten ourselves two cakes. This way, we get to keep our cake and eat it, too.

Put another way, we have discovered work that we love. Better still, we manage to earn a decent living. Indeed, many of us earn a better living than 90 percent of corporate workers who hate their jobs.

Above all, ensure that you end up working at something that you love instead of working just for the money. Working at something just for the money is something fearful people do. It is a sign of their lack of self-confidence in their ability, talent, and creativity to earn money doing something they enjoy.

Truth be known, a typical corporate job is a goal much too small for millions of creative individuals in this world. Indeed, if you are not just a dreamer but also a doer a dream career does not have to be an unattainable fantasy.

Chicago advertising executive Robert Cochrane warned Carl Laemmle with these words: "Don't be a salary slave! If you are going to do anything in this world, you must start before you are forty, before your period of initiative has ended. Do it now!"

In short, it's seldom too late to discover and pursue a dream job or unique vocation. But it is better to make that career change to your dream job sooner than later.

NOTE: This article is adapted from the book Real Success Without a Real Job (Ten Speed Press) by Ernie J. Zelinski.

Download the free E-book (in PDF format) with the first chapter of Real Success Without a Real Job at:

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