How to Find Fulfilling Work (The School of Life) by Roman Krznaric

How to Find Fulfilling Work (The School of Life) by Roman Krznaric

Author:Roman Krznaric [Krznaric, Roman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2013-04-22T22:00:00+00:00


Experimental projects take three main forms, which I will address in descending order of personal challenge: radical sabbaticals, branching projects and conversational research. They are designed to suit different kinds of people, with different career ambitions, at different stages of their journey. All of them, though, can help pinpoint which of our possible selves offers the greatest prospect for fulfilment.

We have already encountered the first and most demanding form, the radical sabbatical. This was Laura van Bouchout’s approach, and involves granting yourself a dedicated period for action-based projects, such as shadowing or accompanying people in their work, or volunteering in an appealing organization. Laura gave herself the unusual birthday present of a whole year to flirt with thirty possible future selves. She had no clear destination, just a basketful of ideas, and made space in her life by working part-time to support herself, which left her plenty of time for experiential adventuring. But you might equally pursue a radical sabbatical – what I also think of as a ‘job holiday’ – by taking a few months of unpaid leave, or using a couple of weeks of your annual vacation. In fact, I think it would be a good idea if we all spent at least one week every year trying out a different career, even if we believe we are happy in our existing job. We may not even realize that we are unfulfilled until we immerse ourselves in an alternative world. Who knows – running a cat hotel might turn out to be unexpectedly rewarding.

A second and more common form of experimental project is the branching project, or what Ibarra calls a ‘temporary assignment’. One of the most pervasive myths of career change is the belief that it requires a drastic shift to a completely new life, where we march into work on Monday morning and hand in our resignation, then boldly step into the unknown. That would put off almost anybody. But with branching projects, such a risky strategy is not necessary, because they are designed as short experiments pursued around the edge of our existing career, through which we test out our possible selves. Apart from options such as work shadowing or volunteering, we could do a training course that gives us a taste of a different career, or try out an initial, scaled-down version of a prospective job.

As an example of the latter, imagine that you felt stuck in your job as a literary agent and were thinking of becoming a yoga teacher. What should you do? Stop thinking about it and get into action by starting to teach yoga in your spare time, perhaps on a weekday evening or on the weekend, to discover whether it really does provide that spark of radical aliveness that you hoped for. If it does, you can gradually increase your teaching commitments until you feel confident about leaving your old career behind you.

In effect, you will have taken a number of small and relatively unrisky steps, but which have led to big results.



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