the bonbon life.

When You Don’t Know What You Want to Be When You Grow Up (Pssst—Even if you are 30.)

Monday, June 23, 2008 –

I don’t know what I want but I know it’s not this.

I saw a book with that title while browsing the career/entrepreneurship section at Barnes and Noble a few months back.  It got me thinking about how many times we hear about people who toil away at day jobs while working on their passions outside the workplace on nights or weekends.  Maybe they play in a band, or paint, or are starting a small business.  They know exactly what they love and work to find a way to do it for a living.  Or at the very least, keep it as a very high priority hobby or part-time side gig.

But what about those who are sure they can’t stand their current job or career but don’t know what they’d rather be doing?  It’s actually a pretty painful place to be.  Having something outside of your miserable job gives you hope and distraction.  At least you’re working on the thing that will eventually allow you to stick it to the man.

We all have at least one or two activities we enjoy in our personal time–even if it’s mindlessly surfing the web or watching TV.  Maybe if you’re really ambitious you play a sport or volunteer at an animal shelter or take art classes.  You enjoy these things but don’t see a way to make a full-time living around them. You hear stories about people who knew what they were born to do since pre-school.  We think of them as lucky or blessed and resign ourselves to the necessary evil that is traditional employment. Forty more years of this?  I can hardly stand the thought but I guess that’s what I signed up for.  At least I can go home tonight and be hypnotized by the TV/drink too much/eat too much/complain to my significant other.

You need to dig a little deeper inside yourself to begin tackling a dilemma like this. There are three little exercises that have helped me in the past.  First, you should figure out what is most important to you.  What are your values?  When I explored this myself I discovered that they were freedom, joy and service.  Once I established this I knew that any career path I considered needed to fulfill these values.  Start by jotting down anything that comes to mind and then work on narrowing them down to your top 3 or 4.  A great free online resource for doing this is the Identifying Your Values Workbook from The Synergy Institute Online.

Second, think back to when you were in elementary school, junior high and high school.  What did you want to be?  Did you have fantasies of becoming an astronaut or movie star?  I vividly remember playing out a whole series of adventures in my head of me as a pop singer.  It’s probably because I watched way too much MTV but in my mind I really saw myself as the next Madonna.  I never pursued that dream in reality, however.  No singing or dancing lessons.  Looking back I am not sure why. (Besides the pesky little issue of having no singing talent whatsoever.)  Maybe even at 8 years old I was already too practical?  I think this was most likely due to the adults around me making it clear that I had to be more realistic with my career pursuits. Shocker! (But that’s another blog post.)

That being said I turned my attention to aspirations of being a writer, journalist, television producer, psychiatrist or high-powered attorney.  Yes, those are all over the place. The psychiatrist gig got tossed out circa ninth grade when I brought home a C in Algebra.  Clearly I wasn’t going to make it through med school because of that.  Oh, the horror.

But seriously, think about your first eighteen years and the careers that excited you.  What specific aspects of those professions ignited a spark in you?

Lastly, are there certain skills or talents that others have mentioned they see in you?  Do certain characteristics come up frequently when your friends, co-workers or family describe you?  Some of those qualities you may already see in yourself but sometimes we don’t realize fully what we are “good at” until we hear someone else describe our strengths.  For example, I always knew I liked communicating with people and helping to give them “a-ha” moments.  It was always kind of abstract to me until a life coach of mine sent out a survey to those closest to me.  She did so to help me realize how others saw me so I could get clearer on my own skills and abilities.  Over and over things kept coming up: motivational, inspires others, willing to take risks, writer, etc.    These qualities helped me get a better sense of what kind of work I would both enjoy and be most adept at.

Again, nothing others said came as a complete surprise, it was more like I already had a sense of some of my stronger abilities and the exercise just helped to clarify them.  You don’t even have to do a structured survey, just ask people what they see in you or think back on compliments you have received and see if any patterns reveal themselves.  Are there certain things that people always come to you for advice about?

Try these few methods to help get some ideas flowing.  It’s easy to get mired in the everyday routine and lose touch with makes you tick.  Often we don’t take the time to quiet our minds and connect to who we really are.  Doing so can be crucial to breaking out of the rut of your current work situation.