Lord777
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We often hear "Follow your dream!" and "Do what you like." Because of these slogans, it is impossible to see the path to full and fruitful work. These erroneous statements make it difficult to build a career and get satisfaction from the profession. Cal Newport, a scientist and author of several best selling books on personal growth and motivation, believes that the best way to success is to master the business you are already doing. The tips in his book Stop Dreaming, Get Started! Will help you to abandon the search for a true calling and non-existent ideal job in favor of a successful and happy working life.
Rule one: learn from masters, not dreamers
Most people are dreamers. Dream theory says that in order to have a happy working life, the key is to understand what you are passionate about and then find a job that satisfies that passion. But following the dream is dangerous. If you enter work life with a dreamer's approach, boring responsibilities and corporate bureaucracy can be so annoying that the job will instantly turn against you. You will feel unhappy and lost all the time.
If you want to love your job, you shouldn't chase your dream, because people who love their job are not those whose dreams have come true, but those who have worked long enough to learn how to perform their duties well.
Imagine that you have been working in your place for many years - it means that you had time to perfectly master the profession and enjoy the understanding that you can do a lot. Plus, you probably have established good relationships with your colleagues, and you began to understand that people need your work. All of this clearly contradicts dream theory, which leads people to believe in the existence of a perfect job. They are looking for her, but, alas, they never find, they begin to move from one place of work to another and torment themselves with doubts.
A guide in finding your professional destiny should be the approach of the master: you should think not about what the world can give you, but about what you can offer him. The essence of this approach lies in the focus on creating a high quality product and the desire to become an irreplaceable employee.
Think about what you can give the employer. Let it be your rare and valuable professional skills, in other words, your career capital. Aim to create a high quality product and try to become an employee who cannot be overlooked - this is the best strategy for accumulating and investing career capital. Remember that a high calling cannot be realized without becoming a master of your craft.
Rule two: use thoughtful preparation
It will take you some time to build up career capital and move from hired labor to self-employment. It is generally accepted that the required minimum - the "magic number of the master" - is 10 thousand hours. This is the time that makes preparation thoughtful. You are completely focused on completing the task and working to your limit. This activity is difficult and not very pleasant.
At the same time, it is not enough just to give up comfort. You also need to learn to objectively evaluate the results and accept criticism.
Using thoughtful training for professional growth, you can overtake colleagues and accumulate impressive career capital, which you can later exchange for independence - one of the qualities that makes a job attractive and highly valued. The boundaries of freedom will expand as your professionalism grows.
Rule three: exchange career capital for a mission
To realize your high vocation, it is not enough to accumulate career capital. It is also important to make the project visible - this is the law of exclusivity. This means that you need to launch and promote your product in such a way that people know about it and want to discuss it. In other words, a marketing approach must be used in the implementation of the project. This is the only way to make a noble idea the foundation of a brilliant career.
At the same time, there is no need to immediately make grandiose plans: at first, you can carry out modest projects that will help you determine the boundaries of your interests and understand the prospects of your own ideas. If you don't know where to look for ideas, pay attention to related areas: quite often, it is at the intersection of sciences that new hidden opportunities appear.
Take on the work, the result of which can be evaluated in no more than a month. Then ask your colleagues to evaluate the outcome and provide critical comments. Their opinion will help you understand whether to continue working on the project and in what direction. In the end, the implementation of small tasks will give you an idea of what your exceptional project will look like and will point you to the shortest path to success.
In this way, you will gradually come to understand that the mission gives meaning to work, around which you can build your entire working life. The meaning of the mission lies in the fact that it directs energy in a useful direction, changes the whole life of a person, including the attitude towards work. People who know that their work is needed, work brings tremendous satisfaction. In addition, for those who have a mission, no work seems too hard: it does not take away strength, but gives it. It happens that the mission not only gives meaning to the work, but also helps to answer the question of why you live.
To find a mission, you, as in the case of gaining freedom, need to accumulate career capital. Its presence is a necessary condition for the success of the mission. To do this, you should be on the "front line" in your field, constantly monitor what is happening in it. Every week, you definitely need to learn something new in your field of activity: read an article, listen to an expert's speech, talk with one of the more experienced colleagues. Write down any new information from memory or think it over while walking.
Rule four: avoid the pitfalls of independence
Independence is as important as the salary and reputation of the organization. Once you appreciate the importance of freedom of action, you can no longer ignore it when choosing a job.
However, achieving independence is not easy. She has some pitfalls. Those who want to expand the boundaries of freedom and who do not have enough career capital run the risk of getting into the first of them. These people mistakenly believe that it is enough to have the courage to gain professional freedom. But in reality, naked enthusiasm is not something rare and valuable, it cannot be considered career capital.
In fact, in order to gain professional freedom, you need to find a reliable source of income that will give you the opportunity to lead a non-standard lifestyle - to decide for yourself what and when to do. You can't get it without career capital.
Now let's imagine that you have enough career capital to gain independence. You have become a valuable worker, and the employer, not wanting to lose you, begins to hinder your attempts to change your life. This is another trap of independence: freedom is important to you, but not to the company. Faced with resistance, you will understand how difficult it is to invest career capital in your future freedom. The employer will in every possible way persuade you to give up independence in exchange for money and prestige. It's hard to resist such pressure.
To avoid both pitfalls, be guided by the law of financial soundness: use money as an objective measure of value. When deciding whether to take on an attractive job that gives you more independence, make sure that you get paid for it. If not, keep looking. Money will help you understand whether you have enough career capital to become independent, whether you are on the right path to freedom. It is better to give up an idea if no one wants to pay for it and everyone is indifferent to how you manage your working life.
Having the opportunity to independently decide what and how to do, you will feel happier, become more interested in your work and get more satisfaction from its results.
The most important thing
A few simple rules can help you find what you love and build a successful career. First of all, you need to understand that the perfect job does not exist, and it is better not to waste time looking for it, but to try to make the occupation that you already have fun. Over time, you will develop your skills, and they will allow you to become a professional who cannot be overlooked. You will understand what attracts you to work and realize that your valuable and rare abilities are career capital, in exchange for which you can gain independence. You will have the opportunity to live where you want, choose projects that you find interesting, manage your time on your own and not depend on anyone.
Rule one: learn from masters, not dreamers
Most people are dreamers. Dream theory says that in order to have a happy working life, the key is to understand what you are passionate about and then find a job that satisfies that passion. But following the dream is dangerous. If you enter work life with a dreamer's approach, boring responsibilities and corporate bureaucracy can be so annoying that the job will instantly turn against you. You will feel unhappy and lost all the time.
If you want to love your job, you shouldn't chase your dream, because people who love their job are not those whose dreams have come true, but those who have worked long enough to learn how to perform their duties well.
Imagine that you have been working in your place for many years - it means that you had time to perfectly master the profession and enjoy the understanding that you can do a lot. Plus, you probably have established good relationships with your colleagues, and you began to understand that people need your work. All of this clearly contradicts dream theory, which leads people to believe in the existence of a perfect job. They are looking for her, but, alas, they never find, they begin to move from one place of work to another and torment themselves with doubts.
A guide in finding your professional destiny should be the approach of the master: you should think not about what the world can give you, but about what you can offer him. The essence of this approach lies in the focus on creating a high quality product and the desire to become an irreplaceable employee.
Think about what you can give the employer. Let it be your rare and valuable professional skills, in other words, your career capital. Aim to create a high quality product and try to become an employee who cannot be overlooked - this is the best strategy for accumulating and investing career capital. Remember that a high calling cannot be realized without becoming a master of your craft.
Rule two: use thoughtful preparation
It will take you some time to build up career capital and move from hired labor to self-employment. It is generally accepted that the required minimum - the "magic number of the master" - is 10 thousand hours. This is the time that makes preparation thoughtful. You are completely focused on completing the task and working to your limit. This activity is difficult and not very pleasant.
At the same time, it is not enough just to give up comfort. You also need to learn to objectively evaluate the results and accept criticism.
Using thoughtful training for professional growth, you can overtake colleagues and accumulate impressive career capital, which you can later exchange for independence - one of the qualities that makes a job attractive and highly valued. The boundaries of freedom will expand as your professionalism grows.
Rule three: exchange career capital for a mission
To realize your high vocation, it is not enough to accumulate career capital. It is also important to make the project visible - this is the law of exclusivity. This means that you need to launch and promote your product in such a way that people know about it and want to discuss it. In other words, a marketing approach must be used in the implementation of the project. This is the only way to make a noble idea the foundation of a brilliant career.
At the same time, there is no need to immediately make grandiose plans: at first, you can carry out modest projects that will help you determine the boundaries of your interests and understand the prospects of your own ideas. If you don't know where to look for ideas, pay attention to related areas: quite often, it is at the intersection of sciences that new hidden opportunities appear.
Take on the work, the result of which can be evaluated in no more than a month. Then ask your colleagues to evaluate the outcome and provide critical comments. Their opinion will help you understand whether to continue working on the project and in what direction. In the end, the implementation of small tasks will give you an idea of what your exceptional project will look like and will point you to the shortest path to success.
In this way, you will gradually come to understand that the mission gives meaning to work, around which you can build your entire working life. The meaning of the mission lies in the fact that it directs energy in a useful direction, changes the whole life of a person, including the attitude towards work. People who know that their work is needed, work brings tremendous satisfaction. In addition, for those who have a mission, no work seems too hard: it does not take away strength, but gives it. It happens that the mission not only gives meaning to the work, but also helps to answer the question of why you live.
To find a mission, you, as in the case of gaining freedom, need to accumulate career capital. Its presence is a necessary condition for the success of the mission. To do this, you should be on the "front line" in your field, constantly monitor what is happening in it. Every week, you definitely need to learn something new in your field of activity: read an article, listen to an expert's speech, talk with one of the more experienced colleagues. Write down any new information from memory or think it over while walking.
Rule four: avoid the pitfalls of independence
Independence is as important as the salary and reputation of the organization. Once you appreciate the importance of freedom of action, you can no longer ignore it when choosing a job.
However, achieving independence is not easy. She has some pitfalls. Those who want to expand the boundaries of freedom and who do not have enough career capital run the risk of getting into the first of them. These people mistakenly believe that it is enough to have the courage to gain professional freedom. But in reality, naked enthusiasm is not something rare and valuable, it cannot be considered career capital.
In fact, in order to gain professional freedom, you need to find a reliable source of income that will give you the opportunity to lead a non-standard lifestyle - to decide for yourself what and when to do. You can't get it without career capital.
Now let's imagine that you have enough career capital to gain independence. You have become a valuable worker, and the employer, not wanting to lose you, begins to hinder your attempts to change your life. This is another trap of independence: freedom is important to you, but not to the company. Faced with resistance, you will understand how difficult it is to invest career capital in your future freedom. The employer will in every possible way persuade you to give up independence in exchange for money and prestige. It's hard to resist such pressure.
To avoid both pitfalls, be guided by the law of financial soundness: use money as an objective measure of value. When deciding whether to take on an attractive job that gives you more independence, make sure that you get paid for it. If not, keep looking. Money will help you understand whether you have enough career capital to become independent, whether you are on the right path to freedom. It is better to give up an idea if no one wants to pay for it and everyone is indifferent to how you manage your working life.
Having the opportunity to independently decide what and how to do, you will feel happier, become more interested in your work and get more satisfaction from its results.
The most important thing
A few simple rules can help you find what you love and build a successful career. First of all, you need to understand that the perfect job does not exist, and it is better not to waste time looking for it, but to try to make the occupation that you already have fun. Over time, you will develop your skills, and they will allow you to become a professional who cannot be overlooked. You will understand what attracts you to work and realize that your valuable and rare abilities are career capital, in exchange for which you can gain independence. You will have the opportunity to live where you want, choose projects that you find interesting, manage your time on your own and not depend on anyone.
