How to get a job you love

Finding a job can be hard work, finding one that is perfect for you seems even harder. The truth is that it is easier, at least in theory the employer wants you more if you and the job fit together. This is how you get there.

Getting Started
Initiating change
Starting something
Build
Keep it
Remember

Getting Started

You are in one of two situations right now, either you have no job and you're trying really hard to find one or you have a job that makes you feel bad for going there every Monday morning. It doesn't matter if you went trough the university or not to get a job that doesn't make you happy, that's a bad job. Having no job is of course equally bad as that probably makes you unhappy too.

Deciding

The first step of the process is deciding that you actually do want to look for a job that you can love. A lot of people are happy separating work from their free time and couldn't care less about what they actually do at work. The deciding part is hard in another way, you will risk things if you decide to try. If you are unemployed right now I would say go for it as you don't risk anything. The following reasons are in my eyes reason enough to give it a shot:

You are not very happy in general
Your job is boring
At Sunday night you feel bad that you have to go to work Monday
You think you have potential for something bigger

Sit down and think about how your life is today, not only when it comes to work but in total. Would you like it to change? Write down the changes you want.

Initiating change

If you decided you want changes in your life you are the one that need to initiate them. Let's say you now have a list of things that you would like to change that looks similar to this:

Want to travel more

Want to be important in the office

Want to make more money

Want to feel that I make a difference for good in this world

This is actually more or less how my list looks today (I'm sorry about this but just because you have started moving you will still have goals. I'm very happy with my work and have been for a long time but one thing that makes me happy is the change and development itself ). You have your list so now the only thing you need to do is to make it happen.

What kind of job would fulfill most of your wants? I'm guessing that there is a chance that no job in the world can fulfill your every need but if it gets almost all of them right it's probably the right job. Remember that you don't have to reach the goals directly for the job to be nice.

Does it seem hard to find out what kind of job it is? I'll share a small secret, most peoples lists could be cleared pretty fast by starting up a small business. Almost everyone has an idea that could be put in to motion but most of us never goes through with it. Even if you don't have an idea, that is not a problem. Most companies in the world does not do what they started out as. Just give it a try:

Starting something

No matter what your dream job is, you need to start something to get there. If you want to be a the next Sergei Brin or if you want to be head of the finance department in your office you need to get working. I need to tell you something else here, Do not quit your dayjob, do not get in to debt. A lot of people starting things think they need to do it full time and start big, that is the worst way to do it. It will not make you happy it will only add stress to your life instead of making it better.

Starting something is very simple, the important part here is that it is a rewarding job, maybe not in salary but in what you do. Since you didn't quit your dayjob or didn't have one to start with you can afford to do this without making any money at all without being any worse off. This means you can start any business you want. If the dreamjob is impossible to get started because it needs things you can't get at the time, millions of dollars in investment, a spaceship or a doctors degree, start something related that you think you can do. Start something small.

Let me give you an example, my mom, 55 years old, started to make travel guides online. She kept her dayjob but on her free time she wrote about places she had already visited together with my 75 year old grandmother. For every place she set up a small site that my younger brother helped her build. After a year she had 5 good travel guides making some money as an affiliate, sending visitors to hotel booking sites and similar. This does not make her a lot of money but about 1000 dollars a month but the trick is that she really loves to travel and this extra job gives her both opportunity and the money needed for travels. Nowadays she makes 3 or 4 trips a year to new places that she and my grandmother writes about and this has made both of their lives a lot happier.

Start something that is related to your dreamjob and that should have a chance of giving you an income. The best part here is that you don't risk anything, Even if you're idea fails miserably you didn't get any loans and you didn't quit your dayjob. If you can't come up with anything that relates to your dream situation there is always the possibility to actually write about it. Start a blog on the topic, if you want to become an architect but just can't start even small, start a blog about it. Write about architecture and do it the best you can. The idea is that if you start working in the neighborhood of what you really want to do sooner or later you will either get there or actually find something you enjoy more. Most businesses evolve a lot and just starting something will give you a lot of connections and ideas. The important part here is getting started.

Build

Once you have something started, it can be a blog or a small consultancy firm or whatever, you need to build on it. One of the big benefits of being at least in the vicinity of the dreamjob is that you will get to know a lot of people that actually matters when you apply for jobs or that can invest time or money in you if they believe in you. By making the best blog about architecture that you can you will meet others that are interested in architecture and the good part is that some of them will be running their own businesses maybe even architect firms.

No matter what your idea of how to monetize your product, if you have a blog maybe the idea was to make money from advertising, make sure people know how to find and contact you. Promote your product and yourself, there are a lot of guides on how to promote things so we'll leave that out of this knol. The important part here is to get to know people. If you're really interested in the topic you might enjoy forums or other blogs, be active, get input and give input. By making connections and building respect in the community you will soon be someone to the people already in the business. They will remember your name and they will think that you are that guy with that blog on architecture. You are all of a sudden someone that knows things and maybe even an authority.

If you have entrepreneur dreams it is time to start making money, if not, it is time to start applying for jobs. Remember, you are already someone in the business, you don't have to beg for anything. You only apply for jobs you really want but you do it properly.

After two years of running my own small SEO company that I started in the spare bedroom of my apartment I went to an interview at a startup in Stockholm (I'm more comfortable being an employee than running my own business). They already knew about me and there is nothing an employer loves more than hiring someone that has run their own business. They ended up buying my company and hiring me. In total I did 1 interview after deciding I wanted to get a better life.

Keep it

The truth is that any job can get boring. If it's just once a month that you have to do reports it's one thing but if it's all the time you need to change either yourself or the job. To keep loving your job once you have it you need to keep evolving. The same method as we just went trough applies again. If you are constantly building, learning, creating, every employer, every venture capitalist and even your friends will love you. If they love you how hard is it when you apply for a job?