Dream jobs and the fifth dimension

What’s your dream job?  Are you confident you even know what it is?

Whatever it is, chances are you aren’t doing it right now.

I can say that with confidence because over half the people employed in America are dissatisfied at work.  One in five has never had a job that felt right.  Only 6% feel they have pursued their dream career.

But being Americans, we don’t just sit there.  We take action; we:

1. Gut it out.  People who do this are the survivors.  They breathe, they exist, they keep their jobs, even if they don’t accomplish much.
2. Gripe.  These are the grumpy water-cooler junkies.  They complain, they rant, they create negative vibes for everyone else and change nothing.
3. Galvanize.  These types pull like-minded people together to, you know, do something.  They’re rabble-rousers, movement-makers.  Too often, their efforts fail, and then they…
4. Go.  These people quit, expecting the next job to be fantastic, a “great opportunity”, “really exciting”.  Eighteen months into the new job, they’re gone again.

Back in the old days, too many of us gutted it out nine-to-five, believing we had no other option.  Or we griped or galvanized.  Today we still, some of us, do those things but having now received bucket-loads of sage advice about taking control of our career, about being in charge of our destiny, we go.  In droves.

If you are an average American, you will have three to five careers in your working life.  If you’re between the ages of 18 and 37, you are likely to change jobs 10 times.  Don’t think you’re immune as you climb that corporate ladder: the average executive job lasts 2.8 years today, down from 3.3 years in 2006.

I have had 14 jobs in my career, by my count, making me gloriously qualified to peer inside the rapid turnover environment in which we all work.

Unless we reverse the trend, by 2017 we’ll all be talking about the absurdly long duration of Congressional terms. Two years in only one job?  Get real.

Of course, changing jobs can bring advantages – breadth of experience, adaptability, increased networking opportunities, and so on.  But all too often people leave because something has gone wrong.  Eight times out of ten it’s the fit between the person and the job.  We find ourselves in jobs that looked great on paper but in practice don’t play to our strengths or give us fulfillment.  Midway through the week, we feel tired rather than energized.  We get antsy, our tempers fray.  We just don’t fit.  In our minds, we start running through those G-options, even while knowing that none of them really works.

How about trying another way?  Try the fifth dimension:

5. Get it right.  Secure the right job, the right career, for your unique mix of talents and preferences.  Find out what your dream job and career would really be.  Know yourself.

It can be done.  We know how to do it, we have the technology, we have the science. More on that, on how you can make it happen, coming soon.