Do Your Interesting

 

 How many times have people told you the best thing to do is make your job something you love?

Easy right, just go out, get hired into a role that speaks to you professionally and personally, love life and be happy.

Reality? Not anywhere near that easy.

That dream is out there an exists, however it is probably one of the hardest things to define, find and then actually make happen. I am not sharing that to discourage you, far from it, if you follow my writing here and on social you know that I constantly encourage people to push themselves to do the things they want to do.

The point of the post is to support you until that happens. We all need to work, maybe you don't have everything completely figured out yet, so what do you do until you do? Or maybe you will never be one of those people that has one burning passion that you can turn into your life's work, and that's more than okay too.

If you don't have that passion, what do you do then? Follow your interests, follow your curiosity. 

What are the things you are doing in your free time? What are the things that you do for yourself that no one has told you to do? What are you wanting to learn for yourself?

Take these things as inspiration for areas where you could work. I assure you that the impact it will have will be immediate.

When I went through my first career transition, I had no idea how dim I had become in my old role. That's not saying I wasn't still kicking ass at my job, when you know what you do, know the environment, the players, etc, it's easy to keep working your task list and "delivering results".

The problem was nothing about it was fulfilling for me. It was once execution after another, rinse and repeat. I was getting nothing out of it.

Transitioning to a new business in a different industry was wildly eye opening. I absolutely love learning and figuring things out. What I have come to understand about myself (and something I never knew in the past) was just how much energy and interest that gets generated in me when given the change to work on new problems.

Starting that new role was like a putting gasoline on a fire... my brain lit up, I wanted to know the details of everything. Working with new people, having a new team, all of it created all kinds of new interactions and was exposing me to all kinds of new thinking.

If you feel stuck, and you are not sure about the direction you want your career and life to go, start following your interests. Challenge yourself to be in a situation that keeps you curious, and see where that takes you.

 

It's the first step, and in time you will take another, and another after that.