In the past couple of weeks it seems I am running into a lot of people looking to shift their career focus without paying attention to what type of work best suits them. Don’t get me wrong, they have a final destination in mind (a job) and a path they plan to follow (work they feel qualified to do) but they are ignoring the most important part of their search, themselves. I am a huge fan of doing what you love, but how many of us take the time to think about what that is? How many of us are willing to even listen to ourselves think about that without letting all kinds of “mental chatter” take over the conversation. You know the kind of “chatter” I am talking about. The voices that tell us we’re not good enough or we wouldn’t get paid enough, or it would be foolish to go back to school. They chase us away from our ideal job before we even get a chance to recognize it as a dream job. The temptation for many people is to just skip to a solution “the job” in the manner that seems most efficient to us “work we are qualified to do.” My advice is make some space to listen to yourself. Get a glass of your favorite drink to relax with, whether it is a cup of warm tea, your favorite merlot or a glass of something stronger. Put on some music that will help you free your mind. Then just listen to yourself. Be playful. Suspend critical evaluation and just hang out with your thoughts…… with yourself. Then you can start on the plan to get there.