I Can't Find A Career I Love. I Need To Pay The Bills!
Many job seekers can’t focus on their passions. They are about to be thrown out of their home or apartment. They are about to lose the car. They are about to have the electricity cutoff. When you are desperate – when the rent is overdue, the electricity is about to be cutoff, or the repo man is standing at your front door – this may not be time to devote time to discovering your passions. This is the time to pay the bills. However, don’t give up on your passions. Make sure your physical needs are met. Then come back to discovering your passions when you get a “survival job”.
You don’t have to wait 3 years to find out your passions.
I’m not a big fan of “survival jobs”. It’s easy to get “stuck” in a survival job, and never go back to discovering your passions. I’ve seen many people give up on art or music, because they had to take a survival job 10-15 years ago! They are still doing that survival job today! The process of discovering your passions should not be a complex issue, but some people spend too much time on the process. Set a plan to discover your passions in less than 30-days. Then, plan to take one step toward that career goal - take a class, have an informational interview with someone, or make a connection with someone in that career field via email.
Get to work
Look….you’ve got to do what you have to do. So, pay the bill and survive with a “survival job”, but don’t give up on living your dreams. Continue to discover for yourself which type of career will really excite and enrich you.
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Jay Markunas is a Career Coach and Fortune 500 HR Professional living his passions. Along with his partner, Angela Loëb, he helps job seekers and career shifters by offering The Job Search Boot Camp webinar, Find a Career You Love tele-class, career & job coaching services, and career-related products through their company Great Occupations.
Each 1st & 3rd Saturday, he & Angela host The Job Search Boot Camp Show – which also available on iTunes.
Yes, this is a very necessary thing. As I find it extremely easy to lose your living place, car, electricity, etc when you have no income.
I seem to have trouble getting anything at all.
You see, I cannot do heavy physical labor (low physical strength). And it seems difficult to convince anyone I am a “fit” for the lesser jobs. And I have trouble qualifying for some lessor jobs related to my passion (like technician).
And how do you communicate that you take almost anything for work (expect what I can’t physically do) when you have a very long resume with huge amounts of (old and possibly out-dated) engineering experience?
It seems that I really would like to get relevant experience somehow.
The lessor job runs the risk of myself needing to give it so much time that I have no time for anything else. Then I am stuck in it, trapped.
Also how does it affect a resume. And what about the danger of steriotyping myself as something I don’t want to be?
You see realizing my dream is going to take A LOT OF EFFORT, TIME, ETC. And what happens if there is no time left to do this? I can only be awake so many hours a day, and then my performance suffers, which could make me lose the job. And my performance does depend on how much I like what I am doing. So how does one get around the possible poor performance because one is doing something they don’t like and really have no talent for?