Episode #11: Busting the Myth of the Dream Job (and how you can create a work life you love today)

Do you feel like your life is ‘on hold’ until you find your dream job? Do you feel stuck working in the gig economy because you’re not sure what else you want to do?  Do you feel like your friends with more traditional careers are lucky because they knew what they wanted to do?

The idea of the dream job is a hook that’s dangled in front of us from the time we’re young.  We’re constantly asked what we want to be when we grow up, and usually the people asking us these questions want to hear us talk about a traditional, successful career path.  Something that leads us to a corner office, with big windows, a ladder to climb, a good salary, and that helps us feel fulfilled at the end of each day.  The ‘dream job’ is something we’re taught to aspire to, to hope and dream for, and ultimately, many of us end up feeling bad for not being able to find or end up in that ‘dream job’ position.   OR many of us will also find ourselves in that ‘dream job’ and realize that it’s not actually what was ever going to make us happy, not is it what it was cracked up to be in the first place.  

Now I don’t want to bum you out about the job market today. Believe it or not this is actually all about how you can find and build your dream career, the first step though, is to stop believing in the outdated story of the ‘dream job’ that may be what’s keeping you feeling stuck or unsuccessful in the first place.

Today’s episode is all about breaking down the myth of the dream job that may be keeping you feeling stuck, or lost, and then walking through 5 tips that every millennial actually should have been given to help you start out on the right track to building your own individual, realistic, and ideal career.  

1. Get rid of the need for immediacy.

This is a big one for all of us millennials.  Things seem to move SO fast in our lives today, and we’re constantly inundated with updates on one another making it seem like our friends or even just past high school acquaintances are all ‘there’ in some aspect of their lives.  

This is the classic highlight reel talk, making you aware of not comparing yourself to all the ‘perfect’ lives you see in your peer group on the internet.  We see other people’s success and feel like it happened overnight, and never get real exposure to the blood, sweat, and tears that went into getting there.  

The way that we consume information and updates about one another is feeding this need for immediacy that we feel about all aspects of our lives, and it just doesn’t really work that way with your career. So, instead of looking at your work life and feeling disappointed or judgemental of yourself for the fact that you don’t feel like you’re working your dream job already, start to recognize that it’s a building process, and if you feel like you’ve placed yourself on the track to get to where you want to be eventually then that is amazing! 

You’ve probably got somewhere in the realm of 40-50 working years in your life, and it’s only natural to slowly build towards a career peak over the course of those years.  So, if you’re not feeling fulfilled by your work life right now, ask yourself, is it realistic to feel like you should have reached the pinnacle of your career at 25?  30?  Probably not.  So instead, hit pause and look at whether you’ve intentionally placed yourself in a position that is likely to help you work towards where you want to be.  If you’ve intentionally picked your path and chosen where you are in your work life right now, then you’re on the right track.  

2. You don’t have to love every aspect of your career all the time.  

It’s natural for there to be ups and downs, so don’t let yourself dwell in and become consumed by those ‘down’ periods that will happen.  Everyone’s job has crazy busy times, or weird coworkers, or micromanaging bosses, or the occasional crummy client.  

Don’t let your negativity bias take control, and become all consumed by the negative.  Focus on the positive aspects too to keep your perspective balanced.  My favourite way of looking at this was framed out by the author Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic.  She wrote that everyone’s job comes with a shit sandwich that you gotta eat sometimes.  The question is, is it a shit sandwich that you’re willing to eat for the job. You’re never going to find a job without one, so is this the one you’re going to eat.  

Personally this idea came to me when I was eyeballs deep in my wedding photography business in the early years, and starting to feel drained by what felt like the constant evenings and weekends away and on the road so that I could be on location for shoots.  At the end of the day, when I stopped focusing on the negatives, I realized that the positives outweighed the travel that I wasn’t enjoying.  I was only on the road like this from May - October, and the other half of the year I had ‘off’ from this travel cycle.  I loved the freedom I had with my job, I loved the creativity, the social aspect, the constant learning and growing process, and realizing that helped me embrace my sandwich and take a big ol’ bite out of it.  I turned my travel time into time I enjoyed having to myself to think about new projects, to listen to audio books, to consume podcasts on topics I wanted to learn more about, and suddenly, it didn’t seem all that bad anymore.  

Now when you start to weigh your sandwich, you might find that it’s not worth it, that’s a possibility, in which case it’s time to start thinking about how you’re going to pivot.  And to be clear I’m not telling you that you have to put up with actual BS from people.  Sometimes you end up in a bad situation and it’s time to go even if you still love the perks.  But, overall, the idea is again to be realistic about your expectations from your job, and to recognize and embrace the fact that work life isn’t all puppy dogs and roses every day, bad times happen, and usually you get to learn something from them.  If you’re having a crummy time, ask yourself, is the sandwich that comes along with this job worth it?

3. Ask yourself what you value in a career and lifestyle instead of what you want to do.

Ask yourself what is important to you.  Is it finding a social office culture?  Having a job that constantly asks you to learn more and grow?  Is it having the flexibility to work from anywhere?  Is it getting to work on deeper thinking long term projects?  Do you prefer to have more direction or more autonomy?  Start the process of figuring these things out about yourself, and then work on finding a career that matches those values and wants that you have.  Lots of people end up working jobs that are a far cry from what they were ‘educated for’ and often feel kind of guilty about that in a way, but it’s not the job title that matters in your work life success at the end of the day.  

I studied marine biology in school, but kinda always knew that I wanted to work for myself, that the autonomy of being self employed and getting to work on big ideas of my own design was singlehandedly the most important thing to me, so eventually I let go of that career title of ‘marine biologist’ that I had been working towards, thankfully before I started grad school.  And I keep asking myself that same question as my work life progresses.  What values and lifestyle do I want, and does my current career path allow me to have those?  You’ll notice an immediate shift in the clarity of what exactly you want, and subsequently how to get there, when you start to ask yourself this instead of the very vague ‘what do I want to do with my life?’ question we’re raised on.

4. Be accountable for your own financial stability, and don’t always expect to have an employer to lean on to provide for you.

Finding a job with a pension is like finding a four leaf clover these days.  It’s no longer the norm to find one employer, work for them for 40 years, and then retire with a comfortable pension from that employer to continue to live on for the next 40 years.  My grandparents generation was the last generation to truly be able to expect that as the norm, so we all collectively need to shift away from that, and learn to take our financial independence into our own hands.  

We live in the age of entering the work force and being faced with the gig economy, employer and subsequently employee loyalty is low at best, and the hustle culture is causing employees to face burn out in their 20’s and 30’s.  Now I don’t want this to go all negative and complaining about the lot that we’ve received in life.  Our lives here in Canada are great, this is just the new way of it, and we need to adapt, and be taught how to plan for our own financial well being.  

Taking control of your own financial stability early in life will allow you to have a happier and more relaxed approach to your work life.  This means starting to save for retirement and build up our own emergency savings accounts as soon as we start working, not waiting until we hit 40 to do so.  Creating financial stability for yourself, will allow you the autonomy to change careers and pivot over the course of your life, and these days THAT is so much more realistic and attainable than finding the mythical ‘dream job’.  

5. Embrace the art of the pivot.

This is something that goes hand in hand with the financial stability point as well.  Things are changing rapidly in our world, and it doesn’t seem that crazy anymore to think that our career paths can and will change as we go through our work lives.  

Millennials have become known as the ‘job hopping’ generation, and that’s often framed as a bad thing.  We’re spoken about like we’re fickle by people who haven’t recognized the new need to pivot, look out for ourselves, and welcome change that characterizes our young working lives these days.  For example the older tranche of millennials, already their work lives have spanned the crash of 2008, the oil crash of 2015, and the freeking covid pandemic.  All of these events have been deemed ‘once in a lifetime’ and they’ve caused drastic shifts in the work and job market.  

Again, it is what it is.  All I can say to this is that we have to be flexible.  Don’t allow yourself to go down with the ship holding tight to this idea of your ‘dream job’ and what you’ve always wanted to do.  When you’re faced with a career shift, go back to the values question we talked about, figure out what type of values and lifestyle you want your job to afford you, and allow yourself to pivot as needed and continue to find new paths that speak to your wants and needs in life rather than your 17 year old answer to the question, what do you want to do when you graduate?  

Embrace the art of the pivot and don’t fight it, stop valuing the idea of being a ‘lifer’ at your company above all else in today’s day and age.  It’s actually exciting, thinking about the opportunity to change, grow, and learn new skills all throughout our work lives.  I’ll be the first to admit, sometimes a pivot can be painful, especially if it’s forced, but in the long run it’s kinda great, and we just have to get on board with it.  

Linked Resources

Pick up a copy of the book Big Magic 

Download the free audio training all about how to set and achieve goals.

Watch episode 2 to start getting on top of your finances

Watch episode 6 to start creating an emergency savings fund

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