Is Your Professional Career Aligned with Your Life Goals?

Have you ever woken up to go to work and wished you’d won the lottery just so that you don’t have to go there ever again? A lot of people see their daily jobs as torture because they feel they don’t get paid enough money or because they believe they could be doing something better with their lives. Now, those people have probably never asked themselves if their professional career is actually aligned with their life goals.

We’re sometimes not aware of the reasons why we ended up working where we’re currently working. Perhaps we’re there because of the money or just to gain experience to add to our résumés. However, we must think about what will end up happening if our job isn’t aligned with our life purpose and our goals.

Imagine that you have an administrative job. It’s a job that you got pretty easily and one where you don’t have to make a lot of effort. Plus, you get paid a decent amount of money, which is the main reason you stick it out. However, your real purpose is to open a business and be an entrepreneur.

It’s normal for you to do what’s easiest at the moment. You may feel pressured by your environment and simply think that you’re good at your job because it has to do with your career… But what about your long-term goals?

It’s very frustrating to have to work on something you’re not passionate about. You may feel bored and unmotivated. However, the paychecks, your fears, and comfort zone chain you to that job you don’t really enjoy.

People sometimes think that their career has to determine their professional path, which isn’t true at all. Your professional path is something you must choose consciously and, if possible, it must be aligned with your life purposes.

Focus on your dreams

You shouldn’t go to school just to get a degree that can help you get a job and make money. This can lead to frustration, sadness, and dissatisfaction. Those who do this usually keep track of the remaining work days before a holiday. Instead of enjoying their work, they only pay attention to when their next vacation will be.

Everyone has work-related dreams and goals. We all want to work on something so passionately that we enjoy every second of it. In addition, we want to feel free enough to be able to quit what we’re doing if we stop enjoying it and simply move on to something better. In all honesty, we probably won’t let ourselves be trapped by fear, laziness, or comfort if our dreams are aligned with our professional career.

Now, how can you start working in pursuit of your professional goals? It’s important to be realistic when it comes to this. Analyze all your virtues and abilities and also think about what you can improve on. The next step you should take is associate all those things you’re good at with what you’d like to do for a living. Does it help other people? Does it make life easier? What’s its main purpose?

How to know if you’re on the right path

It’s important to think about all the things we mentioned previously. However, there’s another thing that will probably be on your mind: if you’re on the right path to your dreams. In order to be able to answer this, you’ll have to think about these questions:

• How many goals have you accomplished so far? We’re not talking about money here, but about professional goals. If you don’t think you’ve accomplished any thus far, it’s safe to say that your professional career and purposes aren’t aligned.
• Is your work consistent with your values? The reason why we sometimes don’t feel happy regardless of the amount of money we’re making is that our job isn’t consistent with our values. In fact, our job may even sometimes go against them.
• Does what you’re doing motivate you? This is a crucial question. If you don’t give yourself the chance to be productive and improve your abilities and you do your work automatically instead, you’re probably not on the right path.

The answers to these questions can help you figure out if you’re actually on the right path to accomplishing your professional goals. If you discover that you’re not on the right path, you can rethink your situation. Maybe you just have to see things from a different perspective. Perhaps you need to solve some conflicts that may be getting in the way of your work development.

The importance of aligning your professional career with your life goals

There’s a clear difference between those who have a satisfactory career and those who only work. The first ones do it for pleasure. Their job makes them happy and they feel they’re learning from it. In some way, their job allows them to move forward and improve their skills. The latter see work as an obligation, something they have to endure on a daily basis.

Settling is never a good thing. We must always keep in mind that there are other opportunities out there. Now, one thing’s for certain: nothing is achieved without hard work. When what we do is aligned with the things we firmly believe in, we stop seeing our work in a negative light. We enjoy it so much that we don’t feel it’s an obligation.

So why not take time to train ourselves in what we really like and, that way, work towards something that will get us out of bed even in the laziest of days?

It’s all about motivation and patience. If you want to be happy with what you do, we recommend you think about your life purposes first. They’ll guide the way to your actual dreams. Little by little, you’ll start getting closer to achieving your goals.