Doing everything right is no guarantee that you’ll be happy or satisfied.

My Tedx Talk has been bringing me all kinds of interesting inquiries about coaching and people sharing their stories with me. Sometimes, a theme emerges from a rush of interest and lately, I’ve been talking to young men in their late twenties and early thirties who had great promise tacked on them early on, and who are now lost and unsure of what would help them feel good about work.

These are people who did extremely well academically and got swept up in what the school and their parents assumed that meant they were to do. There was a path set out. You showed success, you got put on the success track of more rigorous classes and more opportunities that led to impressive accomplishments for a college application. They all got into prestigious schools and most did really well after having chosen majors that guaranteed them a job. They’ve worked at those jobs, and now hit a wall of loss and disappointment.

NO, nobody died, but the wave that swept them up crested. Now they find themselves out in the real world with good jobs, but no sense of who they are or what they want.

“How did I get here?” is what they are asking.

What about you? Are you asking the same question, even if for a different reason?

It’s so easy to get on a track, respond to what’s in front of you and succeed by jumping through the hoops held before you. It’s not unusual, then, at some point to begin questioning the whole thing.

What needs to happen next is something that I hope we can start asking our young people sooner. And we adults could stand to ask it of ourselves too.

Will the conventional path to success make you happy? A distinction needs to be drawn early on between success and happiness. It’s not that they are mutually exclusive, but we get so focused on success in the hopes that it equals happiness (or at least money) that we don’t put happiness into the mix from the start.

Can we really answer that when we are in high school or college? That depends. Read on.

Here’s the problem: Nobody asked you why you wanted what you wanted.
You went along with what you were supposed to do and you did WELL. But doing well is no guarantee that you’ll like what you’re doing.

What do you want your life to look like? What kind of people do you want to be surrounded by? What kind of location would you hope to live in? What are the non-negotiables about working for you? For example, do you need to know you make a difference? Do you need to do something that is meaningful to you in some way other than a paycheck?

Can you know the answers to these things before getting out of school and experiencing life? I think you can. But it’s going to come from those that come before us modeling it for us.

Whether you are at this questioning stage yourself or you are guiding a younger person, the key is to dig deep and find who was in there before there were rules and fears and naysayers. That’s your Life Blueprint ®. Let us help you find it.

Employable, profitable, steady. Isn’t that what most people would want their kid’s course of study and career trajectory to be? For my eldest son, that path lasted less than the first semester of his freshman year and I couldn’t be happier.

In honor of the graduation season and new endings and beginnings, I’m revisiting the big decision my high school senior made last year and how it progressed through freshman year of college. How might it apply to you?

Oldest male child was good about doing his pre-requisite computer science schoolwork and taking his graduation requirement courses. He played in his Big 10 College’s marching band and was noticed as an asset early on. He auditioned to play percussion for the theatre club and was selected to work on two musicals. Other kids started to wonder out loud why the heck he wasn’t a music major. I guess it got under his skin.

By early November, there were conversations with professors in the arts school and before winter break, the ONE spot being vacated in the music program was a percussionist’s. Eldest male child auditioned and GOT IT!!

I’m not writing this to brag. I want you to read and recognize what happens when you stop denying your DNA.

What transpired next shouldn’t be a surprise.

He was sleeping in practice rooms, he was at rehearsals, he was in eight performance groups and had class, he was traveling to NYC to see his professors perform or to get to sit in the orchestra pit on Broadway or to follow someone he respected to a gig.

He was back to eating, breathing and living MUSIC! We could barely get our son to answer texts! I was never happier to not see him or hear from him. (OK, maybe that’s a lie, but you get what I mean)

So what?

I share this as an appeal. Whether you are guiding a young person during graduation season, graduating yourself, or looking at the next horizon for yourself, please don’t give up on what you are wired for. Are we all going to make a living at this very thing? Maybe not. However, I can tell you that you’ll need the essence of your wiring to be somehow satisfied, so don’t blow it off. Include it. Somehow!

And, in case you think my kid is impractical, I’ll let you in on something. He chose music education over being a performance major so he has something to fall back on, if needed. Not my doing. His alone. I don’t think he’ll need a plan B, but it’s nice to know he understands it’s worth investing in it as an option.

Go create your own CODA. Rewrite your ending. Or beginning. And let us know if we can help.

No one likes to be unemployed. Anxiety is high as uncertainty becomes your daily bread. Doing the hard work of securing a job is enough to make you want to take very long naps even on the sunniest of temperate days.

You put on your “big boy/big girl undies” and get to the biz of finding the next job. There are nibbles, bites, interviews and close calls.   Then, time drags on and …nothing. Things are adding up to nothing!

How long is too long to be without a job?

It’s not a question about living off your savings or how long you can keep yourself from sliding into a hell of self-doubt. More pointedly, how do you know when it’s time to take another tack?

Here’s my answer: As soon as you start feeling hopeless. Even the slightest bit.

I’m not kidding. If the doors are not opening and you are in your mid-fifties or over, it’s time to reinvent. If you’re younger, and your industry has changed radically, the same goes for you. If you do something that a younger person can do for less money, it’s time to move on.

Here’s the good news: You already knew that. You were likely hoping the easy solution for getting another job would turn up. The best way to get it to turn up (if it will at all), is to start on a new track.  You know how that is. Once you’ve moved on or you don’t want something anymore, it shows up. I’m not suggesting this as a trick, but it is a likelihood I want to make you aware of.

In the meanwhile, gather up your gumption and start moving. I’m not suggesting being irresponsible, but I am suggesting that whatever has been tempting you in the periphery may now be viable. Even if it takes some time to build, move in that direction.

What have you been putting off doing for a long time?

What have you been trying to sell to the job market that might be the foundation of a new business?

What other industry could use the skill set you’ve built (even if the industry is foreign to you)? What is something you’ve always dreamed of doing but fear you could not make a living at?

You likely have the answers to these questions. Here’s what will still keep you from taking action.

FEAR

It sounds like this:

“I can’t.”

“I won’t make money at it fast enough.”

“No one will take me seriously.”

“I don’t have the money to invest in starting something or going back to school.”

There are likely a myriad of other messages, but allow me to tell you the part you can’t see yet because you haven’t tried. I’ve seen what happens when people set the wheels in motion, and it’s usually pretty positive.

At first, you’ll get little bites or meet people who are willing to talk to you and explore with you. You’ll research on your own and see new possibilities. You’ll take baby steps and they’ll feel pretty good.

These are signs to keep going. Will this turn into the next job or career? It may or it may not. Either way, I can promise that the time you spend on it will not be a waste. You’ll either hit upon your next success (even if you need to supplement with other work) or you’ll discover something to apply to the original job search that will accelerate things. It will get you out of your slump and seeing things in a new way.

I would put my money on the new tack becoming the permanent change. That’s not just wishful thinking – it’s what I’ve learned from experience.

I recently worked with a man who had a middle management position in IT. He had suddenly been let go due to a merger and was not finding it easy to find a similar position elsewhere. The industry wasn’t shrinking, but he was well paid and not willing to settle for less. Not settling led to being unemployed for longer than he would have liked. Once out too long, it became harder to get a job.

By the time he came to me, his stress was high and the pressure was mounting. That’s never a great mindset for exploring next steps. Nonetheless, in an attempt to knock out the brain fog, I had him focus on something that he’s always wondered about doing versus trying to drum away at the same thing (that wasn’t working anyway). He quickly identified that the photography he did for fun was something he dreamt about doing for a living.

With some resistance, he started to talk to professional photographers in different aspects of the field. He spent more time working on his own photographic stories. In a few short weeks, he was getting positive feedback on his work, and he was getting a clear idea of what it would mean to try to give it a go.

He ultimately decided not to make it his livelihood, but spending time exploring it (while continuing his job search)made him realize he needed more creativity in his job. He felt he could achieve that by getting more creative about how he managed people and started talking about that in his next interviews. That seemed to make him more attractive, because he did land a job, in his industry.

Unemployment quickly turns from being an event in one’s life to a defining mindset.

THAT must be avoided. Treat it like a correction in the stock market. Things will get better, but it’s a time to adjust your portfolio for future gains. Similarly, adjust yourself. Consider things you’ve written off as useless or non-revenue making and see if they could become a new career path or infuse the old one with a new twist.

The trick is to act sooner rather than later.

When do you give up? Never. Just try a new tack.

Let us know how we can help.

What was your criteria for taking on your job or career?

Did you follow a romance or spouse to a new city and take whatever you could find?
Did you set out to fulfill the path you chose when you declared your college major?
Did life lead you to something unexpected?

Knowing what got you where you are has its merits. However, if you are asking yourself, “Now What?” and are ready for something else, it’s important to revisit your motivation. If you’ve always gone with the flow or even if you’ve been highly ambitious, it’s a worthwhile inquiry to examine why you do what you do.

Why are you in this job? What brought you here?

One of the key factors in figuring out next steps is understanding your motivation. Being satisfied in your work requires that the motivation be tethered to something authentic to you versus something that is an expectation of you. Even the desire to provide for yourself and your family, although based in a genuine internal drive, may not be enough to sustain satisfaction. In today’s world of work, people want more meaning than that.

The meaning will come from connecting your day to day work activities with a pleasing vision about how you are contributing. If you sell plastics and it pays well, but you are feeling antsy, you’re experiencing a lack of connection to something that matters to you.

How do you find that ‘thing? ’ It’s a process.

First, you have to decide you want it. Do you really want to do something that matters to you more than merely have the convenience it provides? It seems obvious to say yes, but think about this. It could mean changing your life. It also requires believing that a change would make a difference to your sense of wholeness.

It’s an entire operating system for life. If you only buy into the operating system of making a living and saving as much as you can for retirement, it will be tough to find new motivation.

If you grew up motivated to not repeat a parent’s trajectory or to prove your worth or value, you may find that motivation is no longer enough to fuel you now. It’s like running on fumes that can’t take you very far. It doesn’t suit you anymore and provides no juice.

So, what might take its place? That’s for you to decide. Why do you want to work? Besides the money, what do you want to accomplish? What impact do you want to have? What calls to you or galls you to the point of needing to take action? What do you see in the world that needs your skill and attention?

There is more to this process of discovering what that ‘THING’ is that you could do, but take my word for it: the ‘why’ has to come first. If you don’t know WHY you want to work, it’s harder to name WHAT you’d like to do.

Take this first journey. Pick up Now What?: 90 Days to a New Life Direction to know how or watch my TEDx Talk. on finding a dream job.

Let me know how we can help.