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Last year when I started my first “Year of Living Lovely” project, I made March my “Have a Happy Career” month because it happened to be the month that I quit my toxic job. I wrote about my experience in this post here. It was also the month that I dived head first into this project. Also, seeing as how most people spend the majority of their days working, making sure you love what you do is essential, so I wanted to take care of it at the beginning of the year.
If you are very happy with your job, or simply content with where you are right now, then I am so happy for you. You have found a formula that works. You see, I was raised to believe two falsehoods about careers: you either work really hard at a job that you don’t love, but make a lot of money, or you do what you love, but barely get by. Now I know this to be untrue. Sure, establishing yourself in your dream career does not mean instant success. Most often, it takes at least five years to build yourself up. You can make good money doing what you love. Or you can also make “enough” doing what you love. Being wealthy is not the only reason to have a career. The career itself can be the goal.
I did not like my last job. I was making decent money and I had the best benefits I had ever heard of. It wasn’t bad work, but it felt fairly meaningless. I worked for a large financial corporation. As you can imagine, people were simply workers, not actual people to this large business. I worked from 8-5, which was not too bad, but I still had to wake up early in the morning to get there. I also had an hour long lunch break, which was really great for a young millennial just getting started. Most of my coworkers were really nice, in fact, I still consider many of them friends. But there was also someone in the office who was bullying me. I won’t waste the energy going over that story again, but after six months I was exhausted. I had been there for two years. Two years that I could have spent doing something more meaningful.
I often found myself daydreaming. I thought about all the things I wish I was doing instead. I read blogs about travel, simple living, minimalism, and positive psychology in my down time. I devoured books and went for nature walks during my lunch breaks to clear my mind. I was not happy. The passing of my future mother-in-law was another reminder of how short life can be. My anxiety and depression over what was happening in the office made me physically ill. I didn’t want to get out of bed, even on the weekends. I cried a lot, which is not like me. And I knew it was bad when my hands would shake while driving to work from anxiety over what was going to happen that day. I had to time my bathroom breaks around my harasser to avoid a confrontation and I had to leave late to avoid running into her in the parking lot. I started using the bathroom on a different floor in order to protect myself and I cherished those few minutes of solitude. After six months of harassment at work, the best choice I made was to leave.
I am not disillusioned to the fact that I had some great opportunities when I made my choice. I had a decent amount of savings, I was able to find a replacement job before I gave in my resignation letter, my apartment lease was up around the same time and I found an apartment within my budget. I also don’t have any dependents and my fiance was supportive of the transition. I was very fortunate. Not everyone is able to overcome so many obstacles in their path to a career change.
Most of all, I knew what I wanted. I had daydreamed about it for years, I had visualized it, and then I made it happen.
I wanted a better life. A life where I woke up when I wanted to, enjoyed my mornings, had more time for working out, healthier meals, time with loved ones, and time for doing what I wanted to do. My dream life involved more reading, writing, blogging, and of course; more photography. I wanted a simpler life, but also a happier one, filled with more travel, more learning, more happiness. I wanted to love what I did every day and still be able to support myself and my other dreams.
I wrote out what I wanted and then mapped out several ways to make it happen. I decided on finding a part-time job that kept my bills paid while I was able to spend my extra time working on my photography and my blog. It may be a slower approach, but it is a steady one and I love the flexibility and security it gives me. My fiance and I also adopted many minimalism ideals such as moving to a smaller studio apartment, spending less, and simplifying our lives. It has brought us so much extra time together and improved our relationship as well as saved us money. All these choices inspired Matthew to change schools and careers as well. He is now pursuing his own dream job by getting his degree, while working a first shift job (opposed to his second and third shift jobs of the past).
Change does not have to happen right away. Sometimes baby steps are the way to go. Either way, the only way to achieve success in your career goals is to keep moving forward. Don’t get stuck. This month I want to reevaluate my career goals to continue moving forward.
My goals for March are:
- Reassess my career goals.
- Find my career weaknesses and create an action plan to work on them.
- Create a career inspiration board.
What does your dream career look like?
