You need to ask yourself a lot of questions when you start a job search.

  • What have been my favorite jobs and why?
  • What were my least favorite jobs and why?
  • What are my KSAs and where can I use them?

And the list goes on and on…  One question I don’t think we ask very often is “Do I want to make a living or do I want to make a life?”  In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you can make a VERY good living and have a crappy life.  Strangely enough, the reverse is also true.  Sure, some people have both but usually, you end up choosing one or the other.  But you don’t have to feel that you are sacrificing a living to have a great life, but you do have to choose.

Make a list of what you want your LIFE to look like.

Not how many hours you want to work vs. how much time off you want but what are the BIG things you want?  Do not confuse the STUFF as being your life.  Your LIFE cannot be taken away from you but you can loose it… by the choices you make.

  • If you have a family, how involved do you want to be?
  • What do you enjoy doing… helping others?  building things?
  • What makes you excited about getting out of bed in the morning?

If you believe in God, have you prayed about what he wants for you?

Many times we spend the majority of our lives trying to build a good living that leads to a crappy shallow life.  When you find out who you are meant to be, you can then start to figure out what you are meant to do.

Al

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston S. Churchill