What to do When You’ve Realized Your Dream Job Isn’t the Dream
It’s a pretty rough realization to have: that job, the one you were so certain was your “dream job”...you’ve finally landed it, and it doesn’t exactly feel like a dream.
Ouch.Once you finally coax yourself out of the fetal position, you might be ready to figure out what’s going on. How did you get things so wrong?
There’s typically a few reasons why this happens, so let’s break them down.
You’ve put the job on a pedestal without considering the realities of it. This is something that happens a lot, unfortunately. It’s similar to when you see people “dating someone’s potential” in relationships - it seldom works out well. When we think about roles solely in concept without considering how they look on a day-to-day level, we can run into this stumbling block. It results in people putting the dream job up on a pedestal, assuming that it’s going to be “the thing” that’s going to make them happy. As a result, they’ll sometimes ignore the red flags they have about the role early on, because “there’s no way that’s true…this is the perfect job!”. They’ll force themselves to stay committed to the dream job that doesn’t feel dreamy for far too long, ignoring the warning signs, simply because they’ve idealized it for so long (and have spent time establishing themselves in the industry). Then, by the time they realize the problem, it feels like a shock, even though it’s a storm that has been brewing for years.
Most often, though, the reason that some dream jobs turn out to be a let down is because the job was never actually your dream. For a lot of people, myself included, this happens when they’ve created a dream job in their head based on external feedback - based on what society or other people tell you a “good job” is. Then, because you don’t have a true, clear sense of understanding about what is important to you, you instead build a “good on paper” job, based on those external expectations and pressures. Alas, a gap forms! You end up with a career that’s “the dream” to others, looking perfect from the outside but feeling rotten on the inside to you. It’s not aligned to your actual wants and needs, so as a result, it will never feel fulfilling. See how that would be an issue?
Regardless of what exactly drove you to this point of an “un-dreamy dream job”, it’s awful to realize you’re there. On top of the obvious frustrations of realizing that you need to rework your career, it often also instills a deep distrust within ourselves. “If I was wrong about my dream job once before, how can I trust ANY of my decisions about future jobs?!”, you think to yourself.
So, if you’ve recently realized that your “dream job” isn’t necessarily the dream, and you’re coming to terms with the fact that you might have built it on the back of somebody elses’ dream, here’s what to do (IMO): get back in touch with yourself again. You need to get crystal clear on your needs, separating them out from the “shoulds” you’ve felt about your career up until now. With my clients, here are the 3 steps we take to do that:
Releasing the pressure of what you SHOULD be doing
In step 1, we work to identify the pressures you’ve been feeling for your career to look a certain way. Whether they’re more internally or externally driven, these pressures are often the biggest factor driving the “un-dreamy dream job” situation because they influence your actions. For example, if you secretly think that “success is all about how much money you make”, you’ll feel that you should prioritize earning potential as your top consideration in any job. Therefore, when other roles that might be a good fit (but don’t pay super well) enter your consideration set, you shut them down! “No!” you think to yourself, “I can’t even let myself explore becoming an (insert awesome thing here), I need to make sure I’m making more money because otherwise I won’t be a success!” See how that works?
In my experience, this “headtrash” will continue to unconsciously drive your career decisions if you don’t work through it to release the pressure. That’s why it’s crucial to start here, with the foundational mindset work.Clarifying what you actually want
I often think of this analogy: you have a litttttle tiny voice in the back of your head, whispering to you what you actually want. You also have a bunch of loud voices, floating around your head with megaphones, shouting, “you should do X”!, “the only way to be successful is Y!”. Until we silence those loud “should” voices, we won’t be able to hear the tiny whisper. So once you’ve released the pressure of what you should be doing, you can finally explore what you want to be doing.
In this step, we take a look at the tasks you’ve done to date, pulling out insight on which elements you liked and when you were most engaged. Then, we work to draw themes from them about who you’re being when you’re most engaged. How are you showing up? What are you doing? Based on that, we build out a purpose statement about who you’re being when you’re at your best and most engaged, which will then become your North Star for your career moving forward. Instead of having a specific job be your “end goal” for your career, your North Star will take its place. Then all of your career decisions moving forward will be based on whether they ladder up to your North Star. “As I stand at this fork in the road, would option 1 or 2 be more aligned with helping me become more of ‘that person’?” This is a great tactic to continually silence your external pressures, and come back to your internal compass to find success.Identifying what that means for your career moving forward
Last but not least, once you’ve developed your own personal rubric for what an aligned career looks like, then we can talk about what that means moving forward. Is there a way for you to shift your existing role to be a better fit? Can we make the dream job a bit dreamier? If not, could we change roles within the same organization, if the company itself isn’t the issue but simply the work? If not, is there a way for us to change roles within the same industry? If not, what other roles could we consider outside of our “known world”? These are the questions we want to be asking ourselves here, because now that we understand what hasn’t been working and what we actually need from our career in order to be more engaged, we can chart our next steps.
So, if you’re realizing your dream job isn’t the dream, that’s where I’d start. And if you’re reading that list and thinking to yourself, “ummmm, yeah Chris, that sounds great, but also SO OVERWHLEMING!”, don’t sweat. Taking clients through this journey and helping them with exercises to reflect on each of these steps is my favorite thing to do, so if you’re needing a little bit of support, I’ve got you covered. I have an entire free workshop about these steps in detail. Plus, you can always click here to apply for a free call with me to see if working together 1x1 is a fit.
Please stop spiraling about the fact that you were “wrong” about your dream job. It doesn’t help (speaking as someone who has tried it before). Instead, maybe try acknowledging it and addressing it, because at least in my experience, those doubts you’ve been struggling with don’t go away on their own ;)
