From Jay Block’s Career Coaches of Excellence Forum
When asked what I do for a living, I respond by saying that I raise my son, enjoy time with my wife, play a fair game of golf, and cherish time spent with friends and family. That’s the short list of what I do for a living. What I do for work is something different. What I do for work includes coaching clients, writing books and articles, and training audiences around the globe to “rethink and grow rich” in all aspects of their life; including their careers.
Career coaches are well aware that the expression “making a living” doesn’t even make sense! How do you make a “living” working? Let’s set the record straight by distinguishing between living and working.
Do you live to work or work to live?
Somehow, our ‘terminology” got confused. There is a profound difference between making a living (how you live) and working at a job or career that provides the life (living) you want.
Career coaches help you to identify your ideal life first; then help you to secure a career that can provide you just that! They will challenge you to first identify and build yourself a meaningful and exciting life then collaborate with you to help you pursue the kind of work that would provide the life you want. While most people invest their lives trying to identify their dream job; career coaches are here to remind us all that it’s more important to define the dream life.
The Career Coaches’ 3-Day Transformation
Day 1: Spend an entire day in solitude, writing down how you want to live your life. What are the 6-8 things that make you happy? What are 6-8 goals you’d like to achieve that would make life worthwhile? What 6-8 changes would you commit to so your life becomes more valuable? If your future isn’t worth a day of personal introspection, you’ll probably spend your life making other people happy and helping other people achieve their goals at the expense of your own. So invest a day designing your life!
Day 2: Once you have an exciting document that showcases your future, you can now devote time to identifying jobs, careers, and professions that will provide the life you want. Write down 6-8 things that make you happy in a job and 10-12 skills that you enjoy doing and that would be valuable to employers. Document what skills you need to learn, credentials or qualifications you must obtain, and relationships you need to establish. Spend a day determining what job options would inspire your life.
Day 3: Create written actions plans. Spend half the day planning how you will achieve those 6-8 things that make you happy and the 6-8 goals that will change your life. Write down how you will make the necessary changes that will make your life more valuable. Then, invest the second half of the day writing down an action plan that will lead you toward the right job, in the right industry, in the right working environment. Allow yourself to envision the kinds of jobs that will inspire you and your life’s ambitions.
Partner with a Career Coach for 3 Days
If you don’t know what you want, you’ll have to settle for what you get. If you live to work rather than work to live, you run the risk of spending your life chasing your tail rather than your dreams. All successful people – including athletes and business people – have successful coaches. Never begrudge the investment you make in your future.
Invest in a personal career coach who will challenge you to take three days to plan your life first; and then examine work options that will lead to an enriched and rewarding life. That is what I call making a living!