The Career Choice Mistake Solution – To Serve

For finding love in a relationship this might look like – always looking out for others and their best interests – doing everything you can to demonstrate your intentions for their well being.

For finding love with your work this might look like – always looking out for others and their best interests – doing everything you can to demonstrate your intentions for their well being. (yes, ditto!)

Did you make a career choice mistake?  Of course you can always get another job, but what can you do to cope with the job you have while you search for another job?  Plus, you certainly don’t want to make the same mistake again – right?  Start to fix this mistake and prevent it from happening again by asking yourself a couple of questions…

What is it that you can be counted on to contribute to others time and time again no matter what?  I mean what can you really be counted on for – as in no matter what job you are in or if your dog died that morning?  Do you know?  If you do – great!

Can you explain it in a way that is compelling and inspiring – in a way where someone could see how it could make a difference for them?  If you can’t, then you are in the same company with most of the workforce.

The good news is that by getting clear about it you inspire yourself as well as others because it makes knowing what to do for others (or in sticky situations) really clear.  So getting clear on the intentions you have for others and always deciding to serve from them is key to getting out of a job situation where you are sinning, settling or suffering.  Get clear about these intentions – and explain them well – and you are set far apart from most people in the workforce.

We rarely find love when we are only looking at the physical or material components that someone has (their looks, what they wear or drive, how much money they make, what connections they have, etc.).  It’s similar with your job – if all you can see from the job you have (or the job you want) are the material markers of success (the money, a big office, an impressive title, power, perqus, etc.), then that may be a sign that you are in danger of either sinning, settling or suffering.

Divine markers of success include seeing where you have been able to accomplish connection with people, ideas or resources that support the path you are on for serving others.  So, do the people you meet, the ideas you come up with or the resources you come across frequently make you question – “how could this opportunity help me accomplish X for (whomever you serve)?”  Or, do they bring up this question” “how could this opportunity help me”?  If you more frequently say the former, then you are serving vs. sinning, settling or suffering.

It’s great when from time to time we come across something for ourselves – but what is the norm for you?  If opportunities you come across make the voice in your head typically raise the question “how is this good for me?” then you are probably not serving to your fullest capacity which means you are not going to feel as fulfilled, happy or successful as you could – AND be able to sustain those feelings over time.

Serving is all about keeping others and a virtuous intention you have for them in mind.  Serving is the remedy to sinning, settling and suffering – here’s how…

SIN – Discover and share your talents, interests, preferences and values with others without concern for the material rewards you can get.  The more you let go of the need for material reward in exchange for doing what you can to benefit others, the greater you expand your ability to feel fulfilled and reap rewards beyond anything you could possibly imagine – and those rewards are sure to follow on a divinely timed scheduled.

SETTLE – Let the vision of your ideal job manifest in the form of getting clear about who you want to serve and what you want to GIVE to those you serve.  What is the intention you want to create in the world?  Who will it impact and in what way? Be sure you see the ability to serve who you want and impact them in the way you want for any job you take – if you don’t see those opportunities during the interview process then don’t settle for that job.  Settling demonstrates that you don’t trust God/the universe to develop your talents to be useful in the way you imagine or yourself to handle the responsibility of what you imagined.  This thinking is neither a good idea, nor is it true.  It can rob you of your hope, self-esteem, and the energy to take advantage of opportunities that can give you a vivid experience of being a part of something you want to be a part of.

SUFFER – Don’t ever be a person who chooses to suffer at work.  Suffering is when you chronically complain about your job or blame everyone and everything around you as the reason for your lack of advancement or ability to be happy.  And despite not being happy, you do nothing to change your situation.  I get that you can’t always make a job change overnight, but what you can do is focus on trying to find new ways to serve others vs. trying to find new evidence that your job sucks.  Get clear about what the job you have enables in your life and practice gratitude for that.  In the meantime, get clear about what would make that job even better and start to search for evidence that those things exists – both in your life and in other’s lives – have gratitude not only for that – but for you ability to notice those things in your life and in other’s lives at all!  Pull yourself out of a contented state of finding fault with your job – start by being grateful for a “Monday through Friday, 9-5” opportunity to interact with and help others.  Seeing how you make a difference for others is the ultimate source of fulfillment for anyone (at least according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).

A simple exercise to help you remedy a career choice mistake and to transition over to serving vs. sinning, settling or suffering is that each day instead of creating a “to do list” of tasks you want to accomplish each day, create a “to be or give list” of the personal qualities, talents/skills, knowledge, resources you want to share with others that day.  See if you can link specific tasks to the opportunities to “be or give” what you intend others to experience from you that day.  Even if you can only come up with 1 thing each day – continually behave in a way that is aligned with the quality, talent/skill, etc. you intend for others.  This exercise can also stimulate gratitude for tasks you may have to accomplish that you may not usually be so excited to accomplish.

Through this exercise you will experience how serving others and keeping others most in mind actually brings you sustained fulfillment much more so than any material markers of satisfaction or success.

Don’t make another career choice mistake.  Discover what you intend for others and match that to occupations and industries.  In return, you will experience a whole new level of fulfillment from your work – find out how at indigoforce.com