Top 4 questions for determining your dream job
Each week we will be asking Dr. Covey to comment on common questions. This week we ask: What should I do to discover my dream job?
Discovering your dream job involves asking yourself these basic questions over time :
(1) What do you really love to do?
(2) What do you do well?
(3) What should you do so that you tap into your true voice?
(4) What does the world need?
It is so important that people take time to reflect on their potential. Most people do not do this. They get swallowed up in other people’s definitions of them and others’ agendas. And those agendas, those external agendas, tend to drive their behavior. This is what I call the “true identity theft.” It is like a cultural DNA, or blanket that lies on top of your true DNA—your true capacities and nature—and robs you of your identity.
You get so immersed in it, so absorbed by it, so habituated to it, so socially reinforced by it that you lose the sense of who you are and what you could do in life. This identity theft is very real and is going on all of the time simply because people are not reflective enough to distinguish the difference between their true DNA and the social DNA. As one person put it,
“When man found the mirror, he began to lose his soul.”
The point is, he became more concerned with his image than with his “self.” To be successful, focus on that which taps into your talent and fuels your passion—that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet. That is how you will discover your dream job. This might not give you society’s definition of success (money, status, material things) but you will feel a deeper success that completes who you are.
“Where talents and the needs of the world cross, therein lies your vocation.”
Aristotle
Join us next week as Dr. Covey discusses what to do if you aren’t in your dream job.
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Tags: , behavior, dream, goals, identity, identity theft, Jobs, life, passion, potential, successful
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December 4th, 2007 at 7:31 am
The hardest question I have found to answer is the first one. I’ve done lots of jobs, everything from muck horse stalls to running my own company, but I’ve never really found anything I love to do. This is true for hobbies as well. I often wonder if I am just fated to be a perpetually dissatisfied person.
C. Worrall
cfoyouself.com
December 4th, 2007 at 9:48 am
This is what I fight about right now.
Im in school, but dont like to study what Im supposed to study. Im trying to find out what makes me happy, fulfills, makes me proud etc..And its not that easy.
Answering these questions might take a lifetime..
December 5th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Following your passion takes blind faith combined with leaping. Action is required. Mess up a few times. Don’t stay comfortable, and when it feels challenging, this is something you are to work on.
I wish you the best of all possibilities in your life…the fact that you are here means you are on the right path.
and it still will take a lifetime…….
December 7th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
The real question is what do we want to create? If we are creating, we are following the will of our creator. To create, you must have a love, a passion. Beethoven created nine symphonies. He became deaf after the second and agonized for a period of time and then went on to compose #3 Eroica, which some critics say was he best work. Imagine becoming deaf and still able to create a symphony. That’s how you know you’re on the right path. Nothing will stand in your way. A creation is your statement, your love, it’s three dimensional. Look at how a symphony can move your spirit. Put you in awe time after time. Each time you encounter the sound a new thought or feeling becomes of you. Your creation makes a statement about you and beauty for others.
December 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Dr Covey,
Thank you for starting a blog! Your first two topics are “classic Covey”
and have prompted some insightful comments as well. Thank you.
You helped change my life years ago with your 7 Habits book, and with a few related seminars I had the good fortune to attend.
I am retired now, and have found myself drifting into Quadrant 4. It prompted me to write a review of your approach to living in Q2, which I posted on my own blog:
http://www.keenerliving.com/2007/12/04/reviewing-coveys-4-quadrants/
This is the second phase in my life in which I have drifted from the lessons you have shared with us. The first time was when my wife passed away unexpectedly about 6 years ago … my mission was shattered, my roles needed redefinition and I did not have it within to redefine them, and I just lost touch with your lessons.
This leads me to suggest a topic for you discuss at some point in the future: re-grounding after a major event or life change. For now, I think it is time that I re-read the 7 Habits … it has been some time since I have done so. But, your suggestions on dealing with life-shifts would be appreciated by many folks, I believe, and by me for sure.
Finally, I know readers of my blog would be interested in your use of technology, as many of them are very much into using technology to help manage their time. Perhaps I could interview you on this for my blog someday, if you are interested. Alternately you may choose to address it herein, but I think it would be an interesting topic.
Thank you again!
December 19th, 2007 at 6:36 am
The points that Dr. Covey made are absolute when it comes to having a sense on purpose, and a reason to rise every day and realise the potenial
that eveyone has in their inherent gifts. It is refreshing that the aspect of happiness is an as pespect of the realizaton of how you percieve who you are
as well as your percepcion of your situation and circumstances.
Life is a Journey; not a destination.
“Follow your Bliss” - Joseph Campell
All that you are is a kernel of what you will.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I don’t find these questions helpful at all. The first two are good for people with a real passion and who are good at it (many if not most people never really find something that they’re passionate about and even if they do they may not be good enough at to make a living at it). The third one is meaningless.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I like very much this post I comment it in my spanish blog. After reading the book “the 7 habits” I change my way of thinking and I even decided to write a blog based in this ideas of self improvement. It is a pity we do not really have many information in our languaje, I think this kind of ideas will improve our organizations and boots our performance.
Thanks for the blog Mr. Covey.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Thank you Dr. Covey! Your books have changed my life and helped me to come closer to finding out what I really love. I will always be grateful.