Jacqueline Tresl, R.N., gives tips on coping with stressEditor's note: Jacqueline Tresl last wrote that if your job causes you an uncomfortable level of stress, quitting may be the solution. Today: Plotting your new career.
"I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs," social critic H.L. Mencken wrote many decades ago.
Mencken speaks for many of us. Our jobs afford little satisfaction. They pay our bills, but they also give us migraines, arteriosclerosis and irritable bowels while simultaneously boring us to death.
Researchers at the University of Michigan asked 1,533 American workers what they considered to be the most important qualities of a good job. High pay finished fifth, job security ranked seventh. According to the research, the No. 1 most important component of a good job was that the work be "interesting." Men and women aren't looking for "easy." We want to be challenged, and not bored.
"I am convinced that for the majority of decent, average, conscientious men, … their vocation bores rather than interests them," efficiency expert Arnold Bennett writes.
The last thing you want to do is get a new job that makes you feel the same as the old one. You may not be able to find a job that's free of stress, but the challenges should be rejuvenating, not tedious.
How do you root out a vocation that is also a passion, a job that gives you a raison d'ętre?
If you could have any occupation in the world, what would it be? What job would you love to do week in, week out, year after year? What job do you imagine would almost always make you happy and cause you the least amount of stress?
If the first job that comes to mind is "movie star, because you love glamour and wealth, you should probably make a second appraisal. Would you really enjoy a constant ultra-low-calorie diet, location shoots, casting calls, chronic rejection, while you forever worry about growing wrinkled and old?
Was your answer more about status and how others perceive you? Then it's probably the wrong answer. Ask the question again, and concentrate on what would make you happy -- you alone.
As you daydream, keep an eye on reality. Where do your true abilities lie? List everything you're good at. That's one group of answers. Here's a second question: What do you love to do? Garden? Exercise? Care for babies, argue, drive or talk on the telephone?
Do any activities appear on both lists?
Find the area where what you do well intersects with what you love to do.
Let's say you have a passion for driving. You believe you could spend all day every day behind the wheel of a 911 Targa (if you could afford it).With that in mind, as you visualize your next workplace, do you think you'll be happy in a cramped cubicle with artificial fluorescent light humming overhead as you crunch property liability insurance numbers 44 hours a week?
Would you rather join a pit crew or soup up engines in a speed shop? Or, if you feel it's too late for such a radical shift, how about a more common job involving cars? More glamorous than pizza delivery man, presumably.
If you love to garden, maybe your next job should not be on the seventh floor of a skyscraper overlooking a concrete landscape. Maybe you should find a job on the ground level -- or outdoors.
If you love children, why are you working with adults?
If you enjoy arguing, maybe you should go to law school.
Expectations: Most of us set our expectations too low, for fear of failing. Dare to dream. Have a clear image of what you want to achieve, and then never lose sight of it.
Execution: This is your "action plan," the link between your expectations and making your dream a reality. Plot it carefully, in minute detail -- set measurable goals, establish short- and long-term objectives and build a solid foundation of specifics so that little is left to happenstance.
Expertise: No matter how badly you want to switch from selling furniture to sculpting marble, you must have some innate ability to sculpt. Sheer willpower alone can't turn you into an artiste.
Endurance: No matter how great your dreams, no matter how carefully you calculate your action plan, unless you have the ability to hang on through the tough times, you'll be hard pressed to find success. Nobody says it's going to be easy. But what do you have to lose? Would you rather be stressed and miserable in a job you hate, or inspired and happy in a job you enjoy?
That's all you need. Take inspiration from the words of resiliency expert Roger Crawford: "You are both the playwright and the star of your life script. You can change the characters and scenes, and even rewrite the ending."
Dare to quit!
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--Jacqueline Tresl, R.N., a coronary intensive care nurse and nursing supervisor for over 20 years, writes about health and happiness for newspapers and magazines. Her first book, "Whoever Heard of a Horse In The House?" is scheduled for release in March.
First published March 2, 2000
Copyright 2001 by TheBostonChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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