Discovering your dream job

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

Discovering your dream job

- There's a quote that I love by Confucius. "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." What about you? Do you sit around daydreaming of the perfect job? One that makes you want to jump out of bed on a Monday morning with a smile on your face, ready and raring to go? It is possible. First, you must decide what your dream job is. Try this quick exercise. Start by writing a table with three columns, hobbies, interests and talents. Set a timer to five minutes, then quickly write down as many things that come to mind under each category as you can in those five minutes.

For your hobbies, write down things that you currently like to do. Under your interests, write down things that you've always wanted to do or that you're interested in. Don't just write down things that interest you now. Let your mind take you back to your childhood dreams and your teenage wonders. What did you want to do as a child? Who did you want to be when you were a teenager? What things were you interested in then that you never got around to doing? And don't forget to include your current aspirations.

Finally, in the last column, fill in all of your talents. You'll be surprised how quickly those five minutes go by. As you can see, some of my hobbies are scuba diving and painting. I like to travel and some of my natural talents include art and teaching. Next, as quickly as you can without really thinking about it long, circle two to four things in each category that interest you the most.

Now, put it all together. Start writing down jobs that you could do using your favorite circled hobbies, your talents and your interests. Try to come up with at least five jobs. For example, based on my table, I could be an art teacher which combines my writing, painting, children, helping people, art and teaching. Or I could be a teacher overseas which combines writing, traveling, helping people, children and teaching.

Or I could be a foreign missionary. I could be a flight attendant, a pilot, a sailing instructor or a Lynda.com author. The more of your hobbies, interests and talents that you can use in one job, the happier you will be. The last step in this exercise is to pick the job that interests you the most. Out of all of the jobs that you came up with, that you created from the combinations of all your hobbies, interests and talents, it's time to select your favorite.

It's a fun exercise and you can really learn a lot about yourself from doing something so simple. Try it with family and friends too. Once you know what it is that you want to do, and what is your dream job, it's time to go for it. Start by researching employers to find out which employer will meet your qualifications for the perfect dream job. Add things to your dream job list such as benefits, vacation time, ability to work from home and so on.

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/creating-an-effective-resume-2011/discovering-your-dream-job