(video below)
Hey there my friend, welcome to a new video!
So far this month, in Personal Growth, I’ve given you 15 tips to gain more confidence.
In the Relationships & Sex video we talked about what men want in a woman, and last week in the Fashion and Beauty video, I showed you the face and hair beauty essentials no woman should live without.
Please make sure that you’re caught up with the videos of interest to you, use your journal, and take advantage of all the solutions and ideas that I’m sharing with you. The intro video linked here talks about how to put the Journal to use, so you can be totally up to speed.
Today, we’re talking CAREER & MONEY and the topic is How To Find a Job You Love.
You hear this a lot: "do what you love, follow your passion and you’ll never feel like you’re really working."
But, like I mentioned last week, not every passion can translate into a career that you would enjoy doing. So for a lot of us, figuring out what we’d love to do career wise, can get confusing… It’s a lot harder than we tend to think it is, and that’s why you probably know so many folks that don’t love what they do. Hate going to work. It’s not necessarily that they’re lazy, odds are, they just probably haven’t figured out what they would love and be really good at, so they’re settling for whatever pays the bills.
Sooo… how do we go about accomplishing this?
Today, I will take you through a process that will help you figure out what you would love to do. And not only that, but figure out the perfect balance between what you’d love to do, and what will be financially suitable for you.
If you have any questions for me, ask away – alexandrapotora.com/contact
So. Let’s start with today’s challenge.
The first thing that I would like you to do, is to make a list of all the jobs or careers that interest you. That speak to you. That you find cool and interesting, and would LOVE to do!! No limit on how many you can list. Just take your time and write till there’s not one more that comes to mind. It doesn’t matter how farfetched it may sound. Detective? Stock Broker? Actor? Marketing Director? Astronaut? Event planner. Go through news articles, magazines, recordings on your DVR, look everywhere for inspiration, so you don’t forget any potential job that is of interest to you. Don’t worry about the qualifications needed for the jobs yet.
Just follow your heart. What does it say? What sounds exciting?
2 things here that I’d like for you to keep in mind as you’re writing these down:
A. Make sure these are ACTUAL jobs one could have,
and
B. Make sure that they are of actual interest to you, and not listed just because they sound cool. Astronaut sounds SUPER awesome to me, it is an actual job, but it’s not something I would actually be interested in doing so I won’t put it on my list. TV show host is SUPER awesome, it is an actual job, AND it’s something I would be interested in doing. Does that make sense?
So go ahead and create your list. If you’re in the position where you like an industry vertical, but don’t know what kind of job titles are available in that industry, you can Google “jobs in communications”. Educate yourself in the matter, and Then write down which ever one stands out to you.
After you’re done writing them all, I would like for you to go down that list, and narrow it down to the top 10. The way I did it, was by comparing 2 at a time. Between 1 and 2, which one speaks most to me? Between 3 and 4, which one is most interesting? Go through all of them, and figure out your top 10.
After you’re done, I’d like for you to set that list aside, and get ready to create a new one. A new list, outlining all the things you love to do in your spare time. Any hobbies you may have. What do you love to do when you’re not at work? Anything. Things like watching a game, photography, gardening… All your hobbies, all the things you love to do in your spare time, write them all down on this list, and after you’re done, set it aside; we will visit it again later.
Now it’s time to grab your first list again, the one you made of the top 10 jobs of interest to you. And here, you’ll create a table (watch video for visual). It’s best to do this on your computer in Excel, but you can definitely draw it out too if you’d rather do that instead. For the purpose of this exercise. I will use this board to show you. (board from office w eraser)
Draw a table with 10 rows and 12 columns. To help you see better, I’m only going to highlight 2 out of the 10 rows, just to make it easier for you to see. But on your sheet, all rows will be equal in size.
Now here are the column headers: Job title, job description, average salary, benefits, hours, traveling, safety level, mental stimulation, how it gives back, credentials needed , PROs and CONs.
We are going to tackle one row at a time. Only when we’re done with the first row, we’ll move on to the second.
So let me explain each column:
Job Title.
This is where you will list the top 10 jobs you narrowed down to. Again, for the purpose of this exercise, I will only enter 2. But you will list all 10. You don’t have to figure out which one should be first, or second, it doesn’t really matter right now. Just list them in whatever order.
The second column – Job Description.
What does this job entail? What would you do? Now comes the research part. If you don’t like doing research, I suggest to you in the most loving way, to deal with it and get over it. It’s an integral part of this exercise, and it’s what will help you figure out the career path that you’ll most love. So dive into the research. If you wrote down detective, you can very simply Google search “detective job description” to get more details. And then Highlight, bullet point those details in the “job description column”. Check and compare at least 3 or 4 different websites to gather this information, and make sure that those sites are legitimate sources. By the time you’re done with the research, make sure that you feel comfortable with your understanding of the job and its requirements. You’re crystal clear, you understand the job responsibilities. That piece of paper that you see in my hand btw, is my personal spreadsheet, and I’m using it to copy that information onto this board, so you can see how this exercise actually looks like.
OK.
In the Average Salary column. You’ll write down how much that job pays. Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com are 2 big job aggregators, and both have a salary link at the bottom of their home pages so you can get an idea of the average, that the job you’re interest in pays in your area.
The bureau of labor statistics at bls.gov also offers job descriptions, average salaries and education requirements. So those will be good resources to you.
If you’re in a situation where it’s hard to figure out the pay, let’s say acting, just look up averages, because not all acting gigs pay the same. And put down a conservative average, because it’s always best to be conservative with your numbers.
Also here, please consider if the job will pay you 1099 or W2, so you can get an idea of how much money you’ll get to keep after paying taxes.
In Benefits.
Is there a 401K available? Any Life, health, vision insurance? For the benefits, you can also Google, or scout through different job board sites, like Monster and CareerBuilder to get a general idea. But you know, all employers are different. So at the end of the day, you’ll just have to keep that into consideration and ask yourself how important this portion is for your lifestyle.
And keep going through the columns, Google the information that you need, reach out to any people you may know in the industry for additional questions, and make sure that you are confident you’ve found sufficient information to make an educated decision at the end of this exercise.
In the Hours column.
Is this usually an 8 hour job? A 12 hour job? I would also like for you to think if it’s a day job or a night job, AND if it requires week ends. You might decide down the line that you Don’t want Saturday to be a Monday.
Traveling. Does this job require long periods of travel? Will that happen often? Is there any potential relocation needed?
Under Safety Level. Is this job safe? An accountant is definitely going to be safer than a Policeman.
Mental Stimulation. I want you to have this here, because our minds need to be stimulated. If you’re in a job where you do the same thing over and over again, you’ll not be stimulated for long. And typically, if there aren’t any new things that you can learn, new ways to explore and grow, things to keep you interested and challenged, you Will lose interest and end up Not loving what you’re doing.
How it gives back. This won’t be a deal breaker for many, but typically, we tend to love things that give back to society more. How is this job inspiring? What does it do for society or your local neighborhood? How does your role somehow impact the people around you, or in general?
Credentials Needed. Things like certificates, degrees, skills you may need to have in order to be in that position. Don’t cross off any rows based on this. Not yet. Do not be discouraged if you see a doctorate is needed for that job. I will help you take this into consideration down the line.
Now let me explain the PROs and CONs columns – after your research is complete in all these areas, you’ll use these 2 sections for your overall, personal view of the job. Let’s say if the salary is big, that would be bullet-pointed as a PRO. But if the benefits suck, that would be a CON.
This will help give you an overview, a general impression of the job and that will help you make a decision, if it is the right kind of job for you or not.
After you finish the 1st row, go on to the second row and repeat the process. Then the 3rd row, 4th, 5th, keep going down the rows until you have completed all the columns for all 10 rows. This project will take some time, so if you need to tackle 1 row a day, that’s totally fine. You don’t want to rush through this, you need to be sure that the information you’ve gathered is adequate, so you can make the BEST decision.
After you’re done with all 10, I would like for you to take a look at your hobbies list, and see if any of your personal hobbies, fall in line with any of the jobs you have written down. If so, highlight that in the PROs section.
Next, I’d like for you to look at the PROs and CONs, and start overall comparing 2 rows at a time to prioritize the list. And think about how each one makes you feel. Is this something you’d love talking about any time any day? If you had to work overtime, would you be OK with it?
Do the PRO’s outweigh the CONs? Are these CON’s better than those CONs? Take 2 at a time and compare them, see which one comes in at #1, the one of most interest to you… which one is #2, #3 #10?
After you’ve prioritized and now know which jobs stand out, I want you to go down the list again and look at the Credentials needed. And ask yourself if that is something you can realistically achieve? Think outside the box for this and don’t get discouraged immediately. You are more creative and resourceful than you may think. But still, ask yourself:
Is the passion that I feel for this career, strong enough to do whatever it takes to get there? Say, work a restaurant job at night to be able to pay your bills, so you can go to school during the day? Or work an unpaid internship? Think about it. Take your time, and figure it out. If that’s your true passion, you’ll do whatever it takes, and not settle down.
To help you in this process, I’d like for you to figure out how much money you need per month:
Rent and/or Mortgage,
Bills,
Food,
Leave some room for the occasional surprises like spare tires, doctor’s visits, etc.
Figure out how much money you need to be able to live. That monthly amount will be your starting point.
Now multiply that total amount that you NEED each month by 12, and you will get a rough idea of the yearly figure that you NEED to make.
If you divide that yearly figure by 2,000, you will be reasonably around the minimum hourly wage you’ll need to make in order to pay your expenses.
Now don’t forget to factor in the taxes. If you need $30,000 a year to live, you won’t need a job that pays $30,000 a year. You’ll need more, because taxes still need to come out of that amount.
After you’re done thinking through the credentials and the monetary side of things, feel free to re-arrange your list if need be. Maybe after this exercise, you decided that #2 will be overall FAR better than #1.
The #1 on your list will need to sound like this:
I would LOVE this job –
I’m wiling to do all of this to get there –
it WILL pay my bills and more. Does that make sense?
Now, after you’ve gone through all these steps, and you have figured out your #1 job, The job that won’t really be a “job”, because you’ll be so passionate about it, it won’t really feel like work, You’ll love it and you’ll be so satisfied, you’ll be one of THOSE people (wink), it’s time to create a plan of action.
I’d like for you to take a look at the skills and training you’ll need for that job. Here, you’ll have to create a plan on how to acquire them. Start looking at internships that could help you get your feet wet and start gathering the experience. Browse your social and professional networks for people in the industry that you want to get into, and ask them for help, ask your friends to put you in contact with other people who may be able to help you get experienced or trained. Go on LinkedIn and join groups in that industry field. Be active, contribute as much as you can, and network with the people from that group. Reach out to bloggers in that industry, see who’s offering free eBooks, classes or seminars. Check your local community college, chambers of commerce, and so forth.
Get on that path!!
Then, work on your resume. Tailor it to speak precisely to that job that you want. I say that, because a marketing resume will be very different from one applying for a job in the financial vertical, right?
My next Career & Money video will be about building the most memorable resume, and I’ll help you put together the most kickass resume around!! It will tie in with this video, and later down the line I’ll also show you how to use Social media to find and get a job, and much more, so stay tuned!
This wraps up our time together And I hope you gathered valuable information; if you did, please LIKE and SHARE the video with your friends, and with those you feel could use the inspiration.
Make sure you review ALL of the Solutions and Challenges posted this month, and remember to use your journal to write down all these notes, and to track the progress.
Ask me your questions, links to get to me are below, Subscribe to the YouTube channel to be the first to get these videos, and join me on my website for lots of exclusives I don’t post anywhere else.
I love you for watching and I’ll see you soon with the next Personal Growth video. Please be kind to yourself and all those around you.
Connect with me on Facebook!
#askalexandra to ask me anything on Instagram and Twitter.
alexandrapotora.com/Contact for more private question.
LEAVE ME A COMMENT BELOW.
