They say that if you can find a job that you enjoy then you will never work a day in your life, and actually this is very close to true – as if you really enjoy what you’re doing it’s quite hard to genuinely think of it as working.

In order to find a job that really doesn’t feel like work, you need to find a career that is something you really want to succeed in and do well in. This means picking a job that you really care about and that you want to succeed in because it’s something that you find interesting and important. In fact if you can find a job you’re passionate about then you’ll find it even better than not working a day in your life – the latter would make you really rather bored whereas working a job you truly care about will instead ensure that you achieve ‘actualization’ – the sense of achievement and of working toward something worthwhile that brings genuine happiness and a sense of success.

Knowing What You Want

The problem is for most people though, that understanding precisely what it is that they want to do can be very difficult, and it’s rather hard to chase your dreams if you don’t know what those dreams entail.

The solution is to get to the bottom of what it is you really want to accomplish and of what is really important to you. One way you can find out what you truly want is to think back to when you were a child – all of us had a dream career at this age, so what was yours? What did you consider to be the job you really wanted to grow up and attain?

Of course there’s a slight problem here – and that is that you may remember that you wanted to be an astronaut. Or a football star. Unfortunately in either case it may well be a little too late. You can achieve whatever you want to – within reason – and unfortunately you need to start early to achieve those particular dreams.

At this point then you need to identify what the route of that desire is. You want to become an astronaut, fine. But what is it about being an astronaut that you find appealing? Is it the sense of adventure? Because in that case you might find that you can achieve the same thing by doing a job where you travel a lot, or where you get to scuba dive. Is it the sense of scientific discovery, or wonderment for the stars and space? Because in that case you might get satisfaction from just being a scientist or researcher. Try doing what is called the ‘five whys’ where you ask what you want to do and then ask the question ‘why’ five times. You will this way get to the bottom of what it is you really want, whether that’s financial freedom, fame or to help mankind.

Another similar strategy is to look to your role models. Think about who it is you look up to in terms of their career, and then ask – what do each of these people have in common? By finding the central thing you want to emulate it can become much easier.

Go for it

And then it’s time to just go for it. Once you know what you want to do there is nothing standing in your way but you.

Many people claim that they think it’s unrealistic to think that we can accomplish what we want to achieve merely by wanting to, and that there is only so much any of us can do. However the point is that it’s actually easy to become anything you want to be – it’s only being a huge success that’s hard.

In other words, if you want to become an artist then it’s easy – because as soon as you start drawing you are technically an artist – just not necessarily a success yet. So start doing whatever it is you want to do or at least trying to do it – that doesn’t mean you have to necessarily give up the day job, just start applying to jobs while you’re doing your current one, or start running a website, or start writing a book.

You’ll find that as soon as you get some success it becomes easier to get more success as you use your initial accomplishments as a ‘springboard’ to accomplish more success. And remember – it’s never too late to be what you always wanted to be.

About the author: Curtez Riggs is an enthusiast blogger working for Life After The Military and often likes to help young students in achieving their dream goals.