Got no patience for sittin’ around!
Career satisfaction, what a fantasy. I propose that the only way you will ever truly be happy is if you are constantly doing something different at differing periods throughout your life. The mistake that most people make is that they believe that once they have chosen a career that it’s set in rebar-enforced concrete that that is what they will be doing for the rest of their lives.
You have to project 15-20 years down the line and ask yourself “Is this the job I want to be doing at that point?” Be blatently honest with yourself.
Take a look at the matching careers of other people in your profession that are 15-20 years ahead of you in life and take a moment to analyse, are they happy/unhappy? Look at their lifestyle. What do they do for fun? How do they spend their free time? How many hours are they putting in at work? Are they jaded with life and can’t find an escape? Does their life make you think twice about the career that you have now chosen? Does their career, which they have been following for 15-20 years, reflect what you think your career ‘end-game’ will be 15-20 years down the road? Be honest. It may be time to start working on an exit strategy. As the blunt edge of an even blunter object constructively side-sweeps your cranium you must realize that time is marching on and you simply don’t have any more of it to waste…
Here’s the kicker, you are NOT your career. If you’re an accountant by day it doesn’t mean you’re an accountant by night, the same goes for any career in any industry. I’ve never agreed with those people that say “Well just look at his/her past choices, that’s usually a good indicator of what his/her future choices will be.” No, this is inaccurate on multiple levels. Everybody has the God given freedom of choice and everybody has the ability to pull themselves out of the murky depths of whatever they got themselves into. You absolutely have a choice, there’s no ‘ifs’ ‘buts’ or ‘ands’ here. Past choices can be forgiven, people can change, conversely, people that have succeeded can make bad choices and end up failing terribly. The point here is not to judge them.
Honestly, I’ve made some really stupid choices in my life but the results of those choices in no way reflect the mindset of future results I can make with good choices today. Because 31 year old Jon is completely different from 19 year old Jon. The choices I made regarding my career when I was in my late teens in no way reflects my needs today. What was good for me then is not good for me today. This is all a process, the reality doesn’t set in overnight, it happens over years and even then only with deep introspection will you come to understand it.
So right now I’m projecting my career 15-20 years down the road and the outlook is absolutely dismal. I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing today when I’m 45 and I’m not going to sit and wait until I’m 45 to act. I have to start today, and honestly, there’s no time to be taking baby-steps, taking baby-steps in the right direction was okay 10 years ago but I can’t afford that anymore, it’s now time to start taking leaps and bounds. My perspective is that if you’re nearing the half-way point in your life you really don’t have a choice, you either make these hard decisions now and reap the rewards later or you do nothing now and reap the consequences of your actions down the road. These are the most fruitful years of your life and you don’t want to sit and let them go to waste working in a career that brings absolutely no long term satisfaction.
You absolutely cannot spend the prime of your life doing something that you do not enjoy in the hopes that it will bring some contentment to your life at some point down the road. It’s not going to happen like that. You need to change and make the choices you need to make to get you to your destination, and hopefully you will enjoy the journey while doing it.
