3 Things I Did To Create My Dream Job After 40.

I don’t know about you, but when I hit my 40th birthday, I began to get restless as I pondered what the rest of my career would look like. I became bored in my corporate job and it felt as if I was just spinning on a hamster wheel. It was the same old routine every Monday through Friday. By my own admission, I was actually pretty good at, but it just didn’t rock my world like it once did.

You see, as I grew more into the true version of myself, I realized that chasing a large paycheck and being concerned with my ranking on the company scorecard just didn’t seem important to me any longer. It’s not that there is anything wrong with that, but my priorities had changed as I went through several life experiences.

Like a bolt of lightning, reality struck me, and I realized that I was only given one chance to create a life that I wanted to build for me — not by working for someone else. If I only had one shot, I wanted to be sure it was doing something that I felt aligned with my core values, my strengths (which are Futuristic, Maximizer, Belief, Arranger, Activator, according to my CliftonStrengths profile), and that gave me the freedom to be home more with my family, which is my number one priority.

The title of this article is a topic that I am often asked about as an executive coach by many professionals over 40 who are also experiencing this question in their lives.

What’s next for me and how do I get there?

There seem to be many of us out there that lose the excitement of chasing zeros in our paycheck or looking for that big job title. Interestingly enough, many of those I have coached have achieved the pinnacle of their career and earn the big paycheck with the big title. Yet, here they are, ready to exchange it for work that feels more personal, meaningful, and allows them to be their true authentic self.

I don’t know if I have the right answer for everyone out there, but I can share my three tips which helped me get there, and maybe they will help you as well.

Tip 1: Know what you really want: So many say they want to do something else, but they aren’t able to define what that is in life. Start by thinking about what you are not only good at, but what energizes you when you are doing it. For me, it was public speaking. Since I was very small, I had a love for speech class and being able to share a message with an audience. I got excited when I had to write a speech in my college classes and present it to the room. I remember how I enjoyed getting my audience to think about something they may have never considered. Drama class was always a favorite and giving a monologue in the school play was the BEST feeling! It was always something I enjoyed and was pretty good at naturally, but as I moved further into my career, I wasn’t able to do it very much in the job I was paid to do. As I started looking into what I could do next, that was something I knew had to be in the plan. I missed it dearly and I wanted to use my gift.

Tip 2: Learn from those who are successful at what you want to do: If I wanted to move myself forward into a career where I found personal meaning, I knew that I had to research what career options would align with the career I really wanted to do next.

That meant I had to interview as many people as I could that were successful at what I wanted to do and learn how they got there. Remember, success leaves clues, as Tony Robbins says, so there must be something to that right? I must have interviewed over 100 motivational speakers from 2016 to 2018, but I sure as heck learned how they got there.

Tip 3: Apply what you have learned: After interviewing over 100 motivational speakers, I learned how each of them started their careers, what they did to plan, how many times they failed, and how they ultimately found success after years of hard work. I have more than 20 notebooks filled with lessons where I wrote notes from our conversations. I still read them to this day to remind myself how the process takes time to get to the highest level. Few became successful in just a few years. I studied them, I practiced what I learned, and I used it in my personal development plan for my future.

These tips are just a few examples of what helped me to create my dream job, but the key is that I had to take the time to sit down and really think about what I wanted next for me. It had to be something that I not only felt passionate about, but I felt was my purpose.

There is a difference in passion and purpose.

Passion is a strong emotion that you feel for something. Purpose is that you are willing to stay on the road no matter how hard it is to get there because you can’t imagine life not doing it.

If you would like to hear more of my story, I was recently featured in a podcast called ‘Landed! Advice On Landing The Job Of Your Dreams’. The link can be found here.

To Your Growth,

Kelly