A recent PARADE/Yahoo! Job Finance Survey revealed that almost 60% of 26,000 respondents said that if they could “do it all over again,” they would not choose the same career they are in now.

Are you one of these people?

The PARADE/Yahoo! Survey tried to drill into what people want by asking questions like whether people would rather have a “5% raise or two more weeks of vacation.” 56% of people chose the money… Yes, and well developed research shows that money stops contributing to happiness once you start making about $75,000/year.

I suspect that what is really going on is much deeper and related to that state of your soul.

For example, traditional career guidance focuses on things like:

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  Finding a job that matches your talents in exchange for money
• Defining success by external measures such as money and material things
• Guiding your career path based on what your employer needs
• Emphasizing what’s already known and practical

Classic career guidance has worked for many people, but for people with above average expectations it can lead to suffocating results: feeling like you’ve lost yourself, living with a sense of emptiness, or even suffering from stress-related health challenges.

Alternative, holistic, True Self aligned career guidance focuses on things like:

• Creating work that provides a income and supports a lifestyle you love
• Defining success by internal measures first such as happiness and fulfillment
• Guiding your career path based on who wants what you have to offer
• Emphasizing what is both possible and practical

Leadership and career help via IAMX guides you to both True Self aligned and practical results – something that seems incongruous and impossible in traditional approaches to work.

My guess is that most people who’d like to restart their careers really want something that wasn’t even considered on the PARADE/Yahoo! Survey and is often one of the last things we consider to be a part of work: FUN!

In our IAMX True Self Assessment, we found that 59.9% of people are not consistently having fun at work. And what I know for sure is that your True Self is most alive when we’re having fun, whether quietly via concentrated effort or robustly during a raucous laughter fest.

But isn’t work supposed to be serious? A part of the survival process where you struggle to put food on the table?

Maybe in traditional ways of thinking about career. But in True Self aligned approaches to career, work is about creative expression, joy, and contribution to a greater good. One of the best indicators of creativity is fun! Just watch a group of pre-schoolers with finger paints and you’ll see creative fun unfold – naturally and easily.

If you are one of the 59% of people who would like to hit the reset button on your career, what would you say you’d be looking for?

If you were not limited in any way by your current situation, what career would you choose now? And why?

Let us know in the comments below…

In the meantime, I hope you’re having loads of fun today!

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