Happy with your chosen profession? Employee stress and burn out can be devastating to your personal life. After all, you are at work some 8 hours a day or more. That could easily be 1/3 of your day if you don’t count sleep. That’s a very long time to be unhappy.
Now, if you emphatically feel stuck, here are great tips to find a new one:
Write on paper – Start with a pad of paper and write down at the top what you want in question form. And then next, simply list out 20 answers to your question. For example, you may choose to scribbling down “What should I be doing with my time and life?” And then spend the next hour or so writing down answers . You can do over and over again until you find the right answer (at least on paper).
Talk to people who know you – Sometimes our friends and relatives have greater intimate knowledge of us in ways we’re not able to for ourselves. When hanging out with a close friend, let them know that you’re in a crossroad in your life or career. Ask their advice on what they think you enjoy doing. More often than not they can zero in to your strengths and abilities and come up with a good suggestion.
Talk to people at work – Sometimes, just like friends, your boss and coworkers have a unique view of you. In fact, they have seen what you’re good at in a professional sense. Compile all the answers you get from them and determine if there’s a hint of what can be your new direction.
Call a headhunter – If you are searching in your career, it’s likely you have resumes handy. Sometimes you’ll be able to catch up with a headhunter in between recruiting schedules and discuss with them your career goals. These have happened to me before and some, not all, have been open to talk. The result had been positive.
Complete a career assessment evaluation – Let’s get this straight: each professional discipline have its requirement. Easy to illustrate, nursing career choices require a different training process from a firefighter. There are several sites on the Internet that you might be able to take one of these tests for a fee. But using my ‘headhunter’ tip above, a lot of job placement agencies where headhunters work are already using a skills assessment program and don’t mind you taking the test in their office. These tests tend to be thorough requiring you to provide multiple choice answers about what you like, don’t like, want to do professionally. It’s a good evaluation to receive hints of what you want to do.
Maintain a notebook of ideas – It’s always good to browse for common threads in your writing. Look out for trends and activities you like as well as don’t like. Also, what you don’t like is as critical as the things that you do not like. By way of example, if you’re averse to an overbearing supervisor, then you might want to start your own business. If you hate nosy coworkers you’d probably prefer your own office.
Discovering what you really want to do with your life might be distressing at times, but you can get help. Without a doubt, we spend a great deal of our lives at work. Hence, its worthwhile to figure it out.