How many of us subscribe to the thinking that getting a dream job, your dream job, will change everything? Will make you jump out of bed in the morning like all those influencers filming themselves?
I am not shaming you, because I am you.
Allow me to elaborate…
Dream jobs exist - but they are not as common as you'd think.
We loosely define dream jobs as - jobs that allow you to engage in something you are passionate about while allowing you a strikingly good work-life balance and offering you good compensation.
IF ONLY...
Over the 10 years I’ve been a working professional, I’ve wrestled with the idea of a 'dream job'
I’ve pivoted careers, and in both instances been happy in my jobs.
In a few of those jobs, I’ve had/have an incredible work-life balance. And the compensation in many of them has given me the few luxuries in life I’ve always wanted.
Does this mean I’ve had my dream job?
The simple answer is no, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that a dream job is one where you wake up with the same passion every day. You are happy no matter what that job throws at you.
The ground truth is, we always conflate a dream job with a good job. A dream job can be one you've aimed to achieve but may or may not be stable, or you may not even be happy. Things can turn sour.
But, a good job offers stability, income, and time for you to pursue things that bring you joy (like @lifeandlemonademerch)
Dream jobs exist, this isn’t a piece about refuting their existence. It’s about understanding and further distinguishing dream jobs from dream companies.
We tend to use them interchangeably.
The latter can be a place you've wanted to work at because of the culture, opportunities, compensation, and learning - and you don’t mind any discomfort that comes with it, because the pros outweigh the cons.
It's perfect, if it’s fueling your purpose at the time.
Drawing from a personal experience, I used to have a job at a winery as a quality control manager - It was my dream job, but circumstances that involved - family, location, and compensation, resulted in me having to give it up. It was incredibly hard
But, I had to pivot.
That led me to enter the immersive world of advertising.
Here I am 7 years later and on another continent. Thriving.
It is a GOOD job.
One that will facilitate me probably owning my own winery one day (manifesting)
The notion we’ve been fed about dream jobs or rather not chasing after them has always been a shade of - “you’ve given up”
It’s twisted and deserves to be shelved. Your job is a big part of your life, but it’s not YOUR whole life.
Taking a moment here to acknowledge my privilege to be in a position to pen this down - to have a job - to be able to make these decisions. Not everyone can, and I’m blessed and grateful.
If you don't have your dream job or work at your dream company, it doesn't mean you are not passionate about the job you currently have. There’s an entire generation that’s a testament to this - our parents. Seldom did they have their dream jobs, but they were mostly passionate about what they did. My father has worked for the same company for 35 years, and I’ve never seen someone as passionate as him about electrical capacitors.
I’ve spent time chasing a dream job, I’ve worked many good jobs, I’ve also worked jobs just to be able to pay my bills. And through all of it I’ve been at the receiving end of several colourful comments, here are some of the golden ones:
Working this job means you are letting so much of your education go to waste.
You moved to a new continent and just work that retail job? - that’s so sad
Is this really what you want? Sounds like you are settling. Are you sure you are not giving up?
Why does location matter, work is all that should. Don’t bother about a life after work.
But you know what not one of these comments brought me? Money. Growth.
Learning.
And every single one of those jobs did.
In my timeline, they served different purposes and newsflash - they have shaped who I am today & I owe most of my self-confidence to them.
Don’t be so hung up on the idea of a dream job that you forget to be the best version of yourself in what you are currently doing, because it may just land up being the closest thing to that dream job you are so fixated on.
Leaving you with a quote from Michael Gary Scott: “Make friends first, make sales second, make love third. In no particular order.”
Comments