A friend of mine have apparently been reading my posts on discernment and decision making the past weeks. He asked me over the weekend if he was meant to be in his job. We had a longish conversation afterwards and we made several discoveries. These I will discuss in more detail here.

First of all, let me say that I think it’s a human thing to ask whether we are meant to be doing something, or meant to be with someone. It’s something very human to look for some kind of finality and oughtness and meaning in things. It assures us not only that we are doing things right but that we are doing the right things.

That is why I love the Filipino translation of the word for meaning: kahulugan. The word kahulugan’s root word is HULOG—which means TO FALL. So that when you find kahulugan—when you find your meaning, there’s a sense of things FALLING INTO PLACE. When things fall into place, there is peace, and a deep sense of joy.

Having said that, and as with many things in life, there is no one formula to all this. While some of us may want to have some finality before we make decisions, and some of us want the dream job before we even graduate from college, our real-life experiences show us some other reality however.

Jobs become stepping stones to other jobs. The kind of work that we end up doing is usually not the kind of work we set out to do when we started. While I wanted to do training when I started in the corporate world, I ended up doing training design, and eventually strategy design, which was never part of my original plan. Now I’m doing consulting, which is something I didn’t set out to do, but is something I thoroughly enjoy. Things fell into place for me without my meaning to. And a year ago if you had asked me what I would do a year from now, I would have given you a totally different answer.

That is because in life, a lot of things are trial and error. However difficult it is to accept. we have to be open to the possibility that our true calling might be totally different from all our educational preparations and all the plans we have made.

But having said that there is no formula, it would still be helpful to have some guidelines to consider when we’re thinking of whether we’re in the right job or not. Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself when you want to know whether you are in the right job:

1) How do you respond when someone asks you about your job? Do you smile when you’re talking about your job? Or are you sad? Or indifferent? If you’re genuinely positive and not just putting up an act, then it’s a signal that you must love what you’re doing. When you love someone, you light up when you talk about him or her. It’s the same about your job. So the next time someone asks you about your job, catch your reaction. It will give you an initial idea about how your job really is, from the emotional level.

2) What makes you happy, what interests you? And I’m not talking about just being excited or thrilled here, but about being deeply happy. Ask yourself why certain activities make you happy or are fulfilling for you, and pay attention to times when you are really enjoying yourself. Notice problems that stir your compassion or excite your imagination. Reflect on stories of people you admire. And ask yourself why you admire these types of people.

BNET puts it this way:

“…If you’re not interested in what you’re doing or where you’re doing it, you’re never going to be able to put your heart into your work. So if your company, industry, subject, or sector doesn’t engage you, it would be in your interest to start exploring how to identify one that does. Is there a topic, issue, or activity that you’ve enjoyed or been curious about for a long time…art, math, politics, social service, science, construction, the environment, for example?”

3) What is your innate skill? Knowing your skill is the next step, but only after asking yourself what makes you happy. If you focus on your skills before you uncover your passions, you limit yourself to jobs that utilize your currently recognized skills. If you start with your passion and interest, you find many options that either match your current skills or require only minimal additional training.

It is important to have your interests and your abilities overlap to create the type of business activities that you both like and are good at.

The list below might be a good way to begin to understand what your interests and skills are. Check which activities you are interested in, and then check whether these are the ones you’re good at:

* Administration
* Analysis
* Budgeting
* Copywriting
* Creative thinking
* Decision making
* Empathy
* Facilitating
* Flexibility
* Initiative
* Innovation
* Interpretation
* Leadership
* Listening
* Mentoring
* Negotiation
* Operations
* Planning
* Problem solving
* Process management
* Project management
* Research
* Presentations
* Teamworking
* Vision

Once you’ve identified your strengths, consider how many of them you’re using in your job, and in what way.

4) How’s your workplace? Think about the organization you work for. How big is it? Do you like working with a lot of people, or do you prefer a small, congenial group of co-workers? Apart from size, some of the other factors you might consider are the following:

• the type of organization: public or private sector, profit or non-profit, national or multinational, academic or commercial, product or service oriented, centralized or decentralized
• the organization’s financial condition, political climate. company growth, current, and future stability and reputation
• your compensation and benefits package. You have needs that must be met, and because of that it’s not just salary that should be considered—other benefits are equally important (i.e. pension, life and disability insurance, health benefits, performance incentives, housing subsidy, leave credits, schedule, etc.)

Ref: BNET.COM