The PeopleAlchemist Edit: change & transformation, business & lifestyle experimentation for TheWomanAlchemist - When does your dream job become your worst nightmare?

Are you surrendering your sense of self-worth in the name of career advancement? You can love your work without living for it. You have surely heard the saying before: "if you do what you love, you'll never have to work a day". Meaning work shouldn't feel like work if it is your passion. If you look around, today's point of view concurs with this: we should all have passions and vocations instead of just being employed. Work as a passion and no longer just for paying the bills. Well, let me give you some hard truths. Firstly, even when you are doing your absolute passion for a job/career/business, there will always be tasks that ARE and FEEL like work. Secondly, even when investing all your time, energy, and commitment into a career, this ideal career will not reciprocate with the same devotion.

THE DREAM JOB AND YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE

So, when does your dream job become your worst nightmare? I remember working late nights and over weekends during my full-time career to prove my passion and commitment to my then bosses. I was always on track for my next role, you see. Until I set up my own business, and then I repeated the cycle; after all, it was my baby and my passion, right? (We always return to our base level, sooner or later). I was desperate to prove my worth; work was a big part of who I was, but the challenge came when it became who I was. The change from healthy to unhealthy relationship sneaked in, little by little. Proving myself, success and validation, joy, more need to prove myself, more success and the cycle go on. After a while, it becomes addictive. And it leads to total dissatisfaction (and, sometimes, burnout). Looking back, I realise that thinking about work in this way had primed me for a professional nightmare. As a woman in a man's world going up the career ladder, I derived my self-worth and sense of identity from my career, depending on external validation, seeking more prominent and more significant roles and projects. You have heard me talk about self-image before. Now that I have done work on myself and my self-concept, I'm feeling satisfaction in the creation process, either delivering a project from one of my clients, writing a blog post or writing a book. I stepped away from "work" emotionally and gave myself the freedom to play. I love what I do, but it doesn't mean it doesn't feel like work sometimes. Dreams are more than work ...

USEFUL READING:

If you need any help, check out my book "90 Days To Reboot Your Career: How To Reinvent Yourself, Your Career and Your Life" to help you focus on achieving what you want whilst having "a life".