By Bruce Feiler/ America is at an inflection point in the labor market. 70 percent of us are unhappy with what we do. And three-quarters of us say we plan to look for new jobs this year. So a total of 100 million Americans will sit down with someone they love and tell them: "I don't like what I'm doing, so I want to do work that makes me happy."
The problem: Most of the advice we get about work is outdated or wrong. I've spent the last 6 years collecting hundreds of stories of Americans who have made big changes in their lives just by changing jobs. I then organized them into useful patterns and ways that can help the rest of us in my new book, The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Career-Obsessed World. Based on new data, here are 5 things you should never do in your career:
Choose a career and stick to it
The most overwhelming advice is that you have a career to start. Of course, some people set a goal and achieve it. But many more of us change our minds, paths or profession. My data shows that the average worker experiences 20 "earthquakes at work" in their lifetime, or 1 every 2 1/2 years.
An "earthquake at work" is a moment of interruption, re-evaluation or reinvention of oneself. Women go through these moments more often than men; and each generation today more than the previous one. While this pace of change may seem extraordinary, for workers it's a gift: You're not forced to make a decision at age 22, and stay in that field for the rest of your life. You can change course whenever you want, for whatever reason you want.
Follow your passion
Of course, the most common advice about work over the last generation has been to follow your passion. So decide to do what brings you joy. The problem: this advice doesn't apply to almost anyone who's happy at work, and it doesn't help almost anyone who wants to be. In my conversations with hundreds of people, I asked them if they followed their passion. Only 1 in 10 people said they followed their bliss. The rest said they followed a completely different path. And yet, they ended up happy with the choice they made.
Ignore your past
Another piece of advice that everyone agrees on these days is to set strict boundaries between work and life. But the happiest people do the opposite. They understand that their lives are inseparable from their work, including their lives before they started working.
For centuries, Americans have said that success is about career advancement and wealth. But in my conversations, I have discovered that the most fulfilled people at work not only climb but also "dig".
They perform what I call "meaningful auditing," using personal archeology to uncover lessons about work that they learned from their families. Here 2 simple questions can help: What are the positive and negative sides of work that you learned from your parents? And besides family, who were your role models as a child? Your model is especially important because it is your first decision on the work you will start. For clues about what you'd rather be doing today, start with what you wanted to do as a child.
Don't believe yourself
An absurd motto is dominating the job market: Don't trust yourself. To find the job you like, you need a career advisor, an aptitude test or a personality code. But the opposite is true. The answer is already within you. And all you have to do is discover it.
I asked everyone in my conversations: What advice was most useful in changing jobs. And three-quarters told me that the advice from others they found most constructive was to continue in the direction they had already started. They needed to hear the word: "Believe in yourself."
Forget your goal
The last piece of bad advice to ignore is that you should print what you want. The job is supposed to be miserable. But changing work norms today mean you don't always have to compromise. You can rewrite your story. The best way to do this is to decide what you want from work today. Not 10 months or 10 years ago. But today. When you do this you will be well on your way to finding the work, happiness and success you deserve.
Note: Bruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers, including Life is Transition.
Originally published on bota.al
