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Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life?
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An MBA isn’t really valued above a degree in any other subject. Just having a bachelors degree doesn’t mean you need to be an officer either - in the last unit I commanded (a PSYOP detachment) 15 of 18 people had at least a bachelors (a few had advanced degrees). Think about what kind of work you’d like to do - I highly recommend the book Designing Your Life for this exercise. It’s not military related but helps guide you as you drill down on what’s important to you. It helped me a lot when I decided to decline a promotion and leave a successful Active Duty career / launch a civilian career.
I think it could be helpful to look around and see what may be remotely interesting, and start from there. Personally, I would not have guessed that I’d be doing what I do now. I started off working in Human Resources. 10 years later, am now working as an IT consultant. Skills and interests just built up over time and led to where I am now.
Assuming that you’re going to retire in your mid-60s, you still have about 30 working years ahead of you. You might as well take some time now to figure out what you want.
There’s a book called “Designing Your Life” that you may find to be helpful. It’s written by two Stanford professors who taught a course to help graduating students figure out what they want to do in life. If you search YouTube, there’s some good videos out there about the concepts too.
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101875321/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QceoFb7ANHTT8
You're getting way, way too far ahead of yourself, bb. That's just anxiety.
Graduate high school. Go to college, study what feels good and you feel good at that allows you opportunities for work.
Big cities are not the only places where jobs exist. Even huge companies like Google have offices in smaller locations — for example, Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is a gorgeous town with tons of nature in and around it. And small companies are also valid places to work. People make livings doing thousands of different things, in hundreds of thousands of businesses across the U.S., not to mention the rest of the world.
You don't need money to have the flexibility to choose whether you live in a city or in nature — it's not like saying, how much money do I need to move to Manhattan? Every single state has cities, every single state has nature.
I highly recommend a book called Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This is based on a class they teach at Stanford, and it's got exercises that will help you look at your future totally differently.
There's not just ONE path that will make you happy in life. There are thousands. What if you lived in a medium-sized city in an apartment next to a park, surrounded by trees? What if you lived in the middle of nowhere and worked for a large, prestigious company remotely? What if you decided to take a job on the other side of the world and experience a totally different culture and natural surroundings?
Do yourself the favor of keeping an open mind and instead of asking "can I?" start asking, "how can I?"
Designing Your Life helped me a bunch when I was burned out/disillusioned with my career. It basically helps you find what gives you energy and purpose, whether that’s tweaking your current career or finding a new one.
I recommend this book: Designing Your Life It's by Stanford Business School teachers who debunk the idea that you have to know what your passion is and devote yourself to it to be fulfilled. They teach a process to learn about what you enjoy doing through experimentation. It takes some effort to work through the exercises, but it's really helpful.
If you need help “thinking outside the box”, I highly suggest the book Designing Your Life. It was written by two Stanford professors in their Design program. It really helped me consider what I was interested in, what I was good at and what jobs were out there. You can also listen to it on Audible or get the workbook.
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101875321/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_C8KT80PNRM2XYS3AGZGQ
Maybe you need to think more introspectively on what type of job you would tolerate and enjoy. Maybe trialing out an business management job before you invest in an mba seems to be in order rather than hoping the passion will follow. I found this book helpful in figuring out how to draft out careers that work for you rather than hope the education will deliver that aligned interest and passion somehow magically. Seems like you have some more thinking to do. Your desire for low hours is not compatible with Mangement always as an example for starter. Good luck! Designing your life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101875321/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_PCEPVKNFVH6CY5Q2FK4J?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
My sister gifted me the program, but it is expensive and i think we only were allowed to take the course because our mother is an alumna of Stanford. The book and Tedx covers most of the seminar, but like the future authoring or brushing your teeth, it is a tool which must be used many times before results can be seen.
Check out this book Designing Your Life - its about applying design thinking principles to figuring out not just your job/career path, but what you value for fun, family, health, etc. It's a great starting place to figuring out how to live and it really helped me out a lot. You don't even need to read the whole thing if reading is not your thing, just a couple chapters will provide you with actionable exercises that will get you going.
I recommend you take a look at an older book called Your Money or Your Life, which has some interesting perspectives you might not have thought of. It set me on a different path in life. Take a look around r/FIRE and r/financialindependence since you think about money a lot. Might as well develop a framework so that you know what you need.
You are very young. I don't think you need to worry yet being sure about what you should do with your life. If you want to travel, do it. If you aren't sure you want to travel, keep on a path towards becoming financially independent. Once you do that, you options for the rest of your life open up a lot more. I would not buy a house until you're more sure where you want to be and how you want to live.
Also broaden your experience, even if sometimes you can only do that online (I especially like walking tours of other cities in the world on Youtube). For instance, a couple years ago I bought a ukulele just because playing music is supposed to be so amazing for your brain. I seriously loved playing music and am now practicing guitar 45 minutes a day. Sometimes you really can't think through what you might enjoy; you just have to try things. Go bowling, go hiking, climb a rock wall, go to a music store and play a few different instruments. Read just the part of the preface available here Designing Your Life book. The concept is you can't build your life like an architect. You shouldn't try to plan it all out and then execute. Overthinkers like us will think our lives away doing that. Instead be a designer. Try something, reject what doesn't work, add in what does, iterate. You'll get there, wherever it is you are going. :)
Oh i was unaware that they were making a new book for the design your life program. You can still get the older version
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful ...
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321
A good book that I often recommend is Designing Your Life. It's written by design professors and it's truly excellent. It even comes with guides for how to think through various parts. (I have no affiliation with them...just love the book!).
Just a couple of ideas:
Most federal jobs (like post carrier) pay the same amount everywhere. Both high cost of living and low cost of living areas. You could consider this type of job and move somewhere you would have a lower cost of living. (I dunno about state jobs)
Consider your values. Is the house more important than the working a "simple job" (or whatever you decide to do w/ extra $)
I think people often get into these kinds of "either/or" mindsets. I'm guilty of this as well. Think about how you could do BOTH. You could work part time as an IT guy. You could live in a low cost of living area. You could trade the car for a bike. Be creative. Only you (and those who know your full story) can help you brainstorm ideas. The book that helped me with this is: Design Your Life https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321 (if you're interested in reading it). I recommend it for these kinds of things.
Remember there's no right or wrong answers. Experiment carefully before making a drastic change. In "Design Your Life," they called this "prototyping."
Hope that's helpful. Best of luck to you!
On this note, is freelance work at all a possibility for you? Or something different and more fulfilling?
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life is my favorite career life crisis book. In my experience, periods of great crisis and life upheaval lead to beautiful things if you allow yourself to embrace the journey. It sucks, but there are great things out there for you. You just have to look a little harder for them right now. ❤️
This is a great book for people who don't know what their passion is: Designing Your Life
One option to try is to see if you and your boss can brainstorm about how to resolve your pain points and their pain points.
I have a lot of trouble with face to face conversations as well. Maybe you can ask your boss to do a design thinking exercise with you (tell them you read about it on a business blog or hbr.org <--fancy biz mgmt site). If the following resonates with you and you're an idea person, check out this <em>book</em>.
How to do design thinking: You can both go find a big whiteboard or a blank wall and use sticky notes. You both get to write out issues and put them on the sticky notes and put them on the wall/white board. Talking while you do this may be helpful. Like saying "I have a hard time managing interactions when people get confrontational" and putting it "confrontational people" on the sticky not and putting it on the wall. Keep going through your concerns until you're done adding things to the board/wall. Also, make sure to add the things that you are doing well at too.
When you have done that, try to group the sticky notes logically and come up with 2-3 actions/things to really work on. Next meeting come back and brainstorm a few behavior changes that are related to the issues, or, think about it independently and come back with some solutions.
For example, it sounds like you need to practice exiting or taking a break from conversations when you start to get activated, rather than waiting until you're at the end of your rope and saying something mean. I've learned that an "I'm sorry but I need to prepare for my next meeting now, can we continue this conversation later?" is super helpful to get out of a conversation.
Sure, design thinking is a leap. But it's really important to learn how to manage job interactions (even if it does suck).
Other info: I also find that I'm much worse on some weeks than others, so, when I start to have a really bad interaction week I tried to stay as quiet as much as possible and defer interactions to the next week when my brain is hopefully back online.
As a fellow perfectionist & procrastinator, I've learned that this combo will not get you very far in life.
What helped me overcome that limiting pattern was Design Thinking and I would highly recommend the book Designing Your Life.
It basically teaches you to embrace a very different process of ideating and prototyping - doesn't that sound better than failing? :)
As for procrastination, I would suggest to:
- learn the art of just starting
- break it down - instead of listing a big task, break it down to a bunch of tiny tasks
- learn to use a timer - begin with a super short, non-threatening session of 2 -5-10 minutes
- bring more self-compassion to your life. Self-compassion is the perfectionism slayer ;)
Hope this helps!
Designing Your Life This book might really help you. It's great
The most direct comparison I can think of is Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans.
I'm a coach in this area. Here are a couple resources I recommend. Happy to chat if you like. DM me. I've pasted some great books below. Additionally, I highly suggest journalling on experiences you've had that you've found meaningful or fulfilling. No example is too small. They all contain clues to what inspires you that you can build on. Love to hear what you discover.
Rob
Designing Your Life:(Fantastic Book)
The Heroes Journey:(This is book from a seminar. Great exercises)
The Passion Test:
New York
2 More on the topic. These are both on the japanese concept of life purpose called Ikigai.
Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese wake up to joy and purpose every day.
I'm a coach in this area. Here are a couple resources I recommend. Happy to chat if you like. DM me.
Rob
Designing Your Life:(Fantastic Book)
The Heroes Journey:(This is book from a seminar. Great exercises)
The Passion Test:
New York
I'm a coach in this area. Here are a couple resources I recommend. Happy to chat if you like. DM me.
Rob
Designing Your Life:(Fantastic Book)
The Heroes Journey:(This is book from a seminar. Great exercises)
​
The Passion Test:
New York
Hi u/FootbaII - I coach senior leaders and executives. Here are a couple of additional things to think about, on top of what u/bayareacoach recommended.
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1) There is a very low barrier to entry. One day someone can just decide to call themselves a coach, without any training. It's also easy enough to get certified online in one day, for $20 in some cases.
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2) Look for fit. Every coach is different, in personality and style. Good coaching gets really intimate and often means getting uncomfortable. Talk to a few coaches to get a feel for their personality and whether this is someone you could trust.
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3) Get clear on what you need specifically. Is it the "inner game" (tenacity, dealing with doubt, overcoming challenges, commitments, leadership), or more skill-based (interviewing, connecting, relationship building, resume review), or something else? That will help you narrow it down.
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4) Don't get sucked into homogeneity. Quite a few senior leaders who have not worked with a coach before will look for someone with a similar past experience to theirs. There is a different skill set for coaching, and not everyone with an executive background will be a good executive coach. Some of the best executive coaches I know come from very different backgrounds (law, medicine, counselling, etc).
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5) Pricing. It's all over the place. Since I started, I've met great coaches that charge $150 / hour and mediocre coaches that charge $100,000+ for a year of coaching. Pricing isn't always equal to the quality of coaching.
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6) Timing and pace. There is no one right fit for everyone. Work with your coach to design something that fits specifically for you. That might mean a weekly session for a few months or two full-day sessions a month apart. Most of my clients go with either two or three sessions per month. However, last year I created a custom program for a senior leader that was based on two weeks of daily coaching. It was intense, and what they needed at the time.
Finally, since you mentioned carer guidance, I feel like you would benefit from reading "Designing Your Life" (on Amazon). It's a great book on finding your way to meaningful work, and was written by two Stanford professors of design.
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One more to consider... Quite a few of my early clients were around 40, and there was a common thread of the challenges they faced. It was about looking at work and life differently. It led me to James Hollis' work on the midlife transition. If you have a feeling you may be in a similar space, I would recommend reading this book. It's about creating meaning in your work and life, and how to elegantly navigate the mid-life period.
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Hope that helps, and best of luck with the career transition! It can be a really exciting time where you get to create your next chapter rather than follow the default trajectory.
Stanford has a book/program similar to it and more tailored towards career prospects called design your life Here is a short lecture about the book. I found it to be better than the future authoring
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful ...
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321
Check out "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. On another note, guaranteed there are jobs that are high-paying and corporate that relate to your passion. You just have to change your perspective, make compromises, and be flexible. Example, don't be a struggling artist, be a well paid designer.
This is worth a look:
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321
I've been reading Designing Your Life and highly recommend it. It talks about this problem.
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321
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