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Are you moving forward?

By Lori, on February 9th, 2012

Have you ever had a dream that you felt was a message for you?

One night I had a dream like that. In my dream, I was at school and had just picked up a new picture id. Before I went home, I stopped at the cafeteria to eat. I filled my tray with food and stepped up to the cashier when I discovered I lost my wallet. My money, my credit cards, my driver’s license, and my new picture id were all gone. I started to worry.

I told the cashier I lost my wallet, so she asked to see my id instead of paying cash. I explained that my id was in my wallet, which was lost. The cashier wouldn’t let me through without either paying, or showing her my new picture id. I panicked. I frantically searched everywhere in the cafeteria for my wallet. I remembered having my wallet with me when I started putting food on my tray. It had to be here, so I retraced all my steps, looking in every direction.

I asked everyone I saw, “Have you seen my wallet?” I asked the other cafeteria workers for help. I even tried to borrow money from other people in line. No one could help me. I felt lost.

I went back to the cashier, but she just kept asking for my id or my payment. I wasn’t allowed to leave. I was stuck in the cafeteria, unidentifiable without an id. I felt frustrated, trapped, and hopeless.

In desperation, I finally asked the cashier, “Why can’t I go anywhere?” She replied, “If you can’t show me who you are, then you don’t know who you are. And if you don’t know who you are, you can’t move on.”

That’s when I woke up.

The message for me was this: If you don’t know or can’t express who you are, what you want, and what you offer, then you can’t really go anywhere.

I used to keep hoping that things would somehow just work out, that the right job or career would just show up. Then I tried running from person to person hoping they had the answer for me. In my case, that was when I moved from job to job and company to company, hoping each one would finally be the job that I would love.

Then I discovered a much better way: find out who you are, what you offer, and what you love to do. Then you can move forward, transforming your career and landing a job you do well and truly enjoy.

What has been your biggest discovery along the path of finding a job and career you love? Would you share it with me on my blog?

Career Transformation, Unearth (your strengths, skills, values, passions)   , , , , , ,  
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Client Stories

 I was looking to make large changes in my life, both job and city.  I was a happy midwestern resident for nearly 30 years but wanted to see what life on a coast was like and get a dream job.  This was a tall order and going into it I thought I would have to make large compromises on parts of my dreams to get any of it.  

I went to Lori to help me achieve these dreams.  It was the best decision I made.

She focused on two things right out of the gate:
  1. clarify my goals, both personal and professional
  2. get me to stop selling myself short

These twin achievements allowed me to approach my hunt with confidence, patience and focus.  My original dream job was to try and combine my technical joys with a personal one.  I enjoy large scale data processing with cutting edge tools, music and baseball.  Through the tools Lori taught me and helped me unearth in myself I got that gig that would have fallen into day dream territory before our work together.  

And yeah, there's platinum records on the walls of my lobby and I have tons of data to process.

Pat Christopher, Intelligence Engineer, Seattle, WA