| The Work Hereafter Outlook (WHO) Indicator |
Do you daydream about the meaningful worklife you'll have someday? Will it be in this lifetime? What are you waiting for? Assess your likelihood of achieving a meaningful worklife in the near (or far) future.
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 Upcoming Teleclasses |
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For Coaches and Trainers |
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Join us for the next:
Starts Thursdays, Mar 25-June 3 from 10:30am-12:00pm Eastern
And now, we're offering the opportunity to sample individual modules of the program with the rollout of our "MeaningGuys Guides .... "
If you're a coach or counselor who is passionate and committed to the idea of meaningful work, we invite you to participate in this new teleclass series:
Thurs, Apr 17
10:00am-11:00am Eastern
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| Recommended Reading |
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by Dan Pink
The follow up to the highly-acclaimed "A Whole New Mind" |
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Greetings!
Woo Hoo! Here it is -- your March edition of Meaningful Careers News.
If you've never answered the question, "What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?" it's never too late. Considering that you will spend roughly 80,000 hours of your life at work, you still have time -- and you've probably still got some growing to do.
Our Feature article asks, "What Do You Want To Be In Your Next Life?" It's an interesting question to ponder. What if you could plan your career all over again? How would it be different? What would you change?
Woody Allen once said, "In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way .... when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough ... then you party (again) ... you become a kid, you play." Sounds good to us. Where do we start?
Start with this month's assessment, the "Work Hereafter Outlook (WHO) Indicator" or join us for one of our many teleclasses about purpose and meaning at work -- because the job you are in now will not last forever. It will evolve and reshape ... and so will you.
Thanks once again for being a part of our community, for letting us engage and inpire you, and for giving meaning to our own worklives.
Dan and Mark
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What Do You Want To Be
In Your Next Life?
by Dan King
Sitting in Starbucks tapping away at my computer, feeling very trendy with a frothy beverage at my side, I overhear two women in candid conversation about companionship, clothing and careers.
I don't mean to eavesdrop, but what can I do? They're loud enough to shake the Starbucks on the next block!
"In my next life, I want to be a designer, maybe do corporate interiors," says one, sipping a decaf vanilla latte with soy milk.
The other, clutching a grande chai with light foam and just a dash of nutmeg, replies, "Oh, I was an interior designer in a past life."
Then Latte with Soy responds, "Really? Where did you work?"
I freeze, like a frappucino in the headlights. Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing? Could it be possible that career changes are cyclical -- that you can change careers many times over many lifetimes?
Awakened by my newfound immortality, I am conscious that all jobs are temporary. A dead-end job merely signals us to plan our careers more carefully the next time around. If we do, we can have a second (third, tenth, hundredth) chance to find the perfect job in the hereafter -- or the hereafter after that!
Imagine that! The networking possibilities alone -- who-was-who rather than who-knows-who -- suggest a contact list multiplied to the second (third, tenth, hundredth) power! Wow!
In a recent column, I asked "What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?" It was a lot like asking a 21-year-old what he's going to do now that he's all grown up and graduating from college. At this early juncture, his efforts flow mostly toward finding a job, making money and building a personal and social life. The idea that he can do whatever he wants to do is exhilarating, but also pretty terrifying.
The difference in asking that of a 30, 40 or 50-something, is that he or she has already been whatever he or she chose to be when they grew up. At mid-career, our thoughts are more about doing things that, for whatever reasons, we didn't get to do, or didn't think about doing, before. The idea that we can have yet another career ahead is often a whole new thought -- one that is likewise exhilarating and terrifying.
What's new is the notion that the choices we make in our 20s and 30s have less permanence and place fewer restrictions on our available choices in our 40s and 50s. It's possible to change careers many times, at any age. You don't have to wait for your next go-round to get another chance.
So you made some poor career decisions in the past. That's not a crime, so don't assume your work has to be a life sentence. You can break free of it. Challenge your assumptions. Start by identifying what's working and what's not -- and what you want to change.
What do you most want to wake up to each day? Try drawing a picture of the ideal job: the role, the responsibilities, the tasks, the people, the environment. If you know what you want to find, you'll increase your likelihood of finding it.
What skills do you possess that you actually enjoy using? If you're like most, you've probably gotten very good at doing things you never chose to do in the first place. Ability has very little to do with enjoyment. Discard the skills you don't enjoy and fill your bag with new, more satisfying ones.
Who are the sorts of people with whom you want to spend your working time? It's not enough to say you enjoy working with people (you have to), but rather the ways you enjoy working with people: managing them, helping them, teaching them, writing about them or merely going to lunch with them.
What do you want from your job above and beyond a paycheck? Interesting projects? Stimulating colleagues? Flextime? Independence and autonomy? Clarifying your work values will help you evaluate how satisfying a particular job will be.
What regrets will you have if you don't explore possibilities for achieving a more satisfying career? A happy work life begets a happy personal and family life. Write an essay entitled "If I Were To Die Tomorrow." Then develop an action plan to create the ending you want to achieve.
The question to ask (whether you believe in reincarnation or not) is not, "what do you want to be in your next life?" but rather "how do you want to spend the remaining time you have in this life?" Longevity is a gift, one we often don't acknowledge until it's almost over. To appreciate it and use it, we need to live our lives like there's no tomorrow.
With that in mind, I'm going for the super dark chocolate biscotti in that big glass jar on the counter -- while there's still time!
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