You might shake your head at me or give a smirk when you read my articles about finding your “dream career” or “work that you love”. Some of you might not be able to imagine yourself in a position or career where you are happy. If that is you, I would encourage you to informally interview some people in your life that look like they enjoy what they do for a living. I’m never going to convince you to put together a five year career plan to ease your way into work you love unless you actually believe that you can find work that you love.
Some of you out there know exactly what you could be doing that would fulfill your desire for meaning and purpose. For those of you that have the idea in your head, whether it be a traditional career working for someone else or a small business idea, you need to make 2008 the beginning of your five year plan to make the transition to your dream career. Why five years? Because great things don’t happen overnight. Fine wines take years to be perfected, becoming a professional athlete takes years of training, and finding work that you love will take a few years to develop. Also, most of us don’t have the resources just to drop our current jobs, and follow a completely different career path. You still need to pay the bills and provide for your family. Follow these three steps for putting together you five year plan of transition to a new career.
- You’ve got the idea in your head, now you need to turn it into a reality, rather than just an idea in your head. Write down ten things that you need to do to make it happen. This could include further education you need to get, an extra emergency fund to supplement income that you might sacrifice to make the transition, and/or networking with certain people in your community.
- Next, narrow down your list of ten things to the five most important, and then put that list on your refrigerator, your computer desktop, and everywhere you’ll be able to see it. Those are the five things you will focus on for the next three to five years to help you transition into the work you love.
- Finally, prioritize what things need to get done in an order that logically flows together. For instance, if you want to transition into buying the franchise of your choice, one of the things you’ll probably want to start first is saving up start-up capital and cleaning up your credit to qualify for a small business loan. You might want to take a couple of courses at your community college to learn more about owning a business or doing business accounting, but that can wait until a year or so before you plan on buying a franchise.
It won’t be easy, and it will be frustrating at times. I am a big believer that the best things in life come with time and patience. Your patience will be rewarded if you slowly and methodically transition into your dream career. Those that totally drop what they are doing and jump into their so-called dream career, will end up less happy than they were before, because the financial hardship and frustration of less-than-expected performance will discourage you.
