Dream job: myth or reality?

As a rule, we give most of our time and energy to work. And we want its implementation to bring us pleasure, or at least satisfaction – whether moral or material. Better than both, right? We talked to experts about whether there is a dream job and how to find it, what motivates us and why there is always not enough money.

If you enter the query “dream job” in a search engine, it becomes obvious that many people are looking for it (in every sense of the word): 743 million links speak for themselves. I wonder, apart from the vacancies that Australians offer from time to time on their Hamilton Island, how many people actually find that very, coveted and only dream job?

“You have to understand that this is an absolutely artificial, marketing term that is used to attract personnel,” says Alexander Evdokimenko, Ph.D. “The feeling of fulfilling a dream is still a short-term state.”

“Employers can change. I would say that you need to look for your own business, your vocation, – specifies business coach Alla Kuznetsova. – Moreover, you can start from knowing yourself (“what do I want?”), And from studying offers on the market. Now there are more and more functionality and works that we didn’t know anything about until recently.”

According to experts, in order for the work to which you give yourself to really bring joy and pleasure, three key points must coincide. As the psychotherapist, business coach, coach Natalya Tumashkova said, “I think you can find a dream job if you have at least a dream.” So the first thing is your desire.

You must understand your goals, define short-term and long-term goals. “Although it’s easy to say,” admits Alla Kuznetsova. – Someone knows himself better, someone worse and enters the same university on the advice or coercion of his parents, for company with friends, and so on. But it’s never too late to listen to yourself and decide what you really want.”

The second is your knowledge and skills. After all, desire is a dream, a fantasy, and skills are a kind of reality (“what can I really do?”). Regardless of seniority, experience and self-confidence, experts do not recommend taking the position of an omniscient and omnipotent craftsman: everyone has something to learn.

Remember: by expanding your skills, you increase your expertise and, therefore, the cost price in the market. “It is worth understanding that everything is changing very quickly,” notes Alla Kuznetsova, “and therefore you need to constantly keep yourself in good shape, see the field for your development, analyze what else is worth working on.”

Finally, the third is circumstances. Even if you are ready to change the field of activity and idea, what would you like to do next, evaluate your capabilities at this stage of life.

For example, if your child just went to school, is under stress, is constantly sick against this background, it is worthwhile to soberly assess the situation and, perhaps, devote your free time not to learning in a new specialty, but to helping your first grader. And the fulfillment of the dream will wait a little.

As an important component of an ideal job, many would certainly name even a high salary. Is this factor for us the main and really motivating?

Material vs moral satisfaction

“Every 40 minutes of teaching gives me such joy, which at my main job I experience only once a month – with an SMS notification about account replenishment,” says 22-year-old Anton. At school, he, a graduate of a prestigious Western university, is kept by his favorite business, and his salary is in a good position in a large company.

He is not ready to give up money or pleasure, so he has to sacrifice almost all his free time.

Not everyone has the opportunity to combine several jobs, most often you have to prioritize. For some, prestige and status are important, they are comfortable only when they drive a car no worse than a certain brand and model, while others feel good when they do what they love.

Alla Kuznetsova recalls the story of a 35-year-old banker who decided to leave an unimaginably high position and for the next two years not to “capitalize” his services to the company, but to study in the West in order to become competitive at the international level.

Another example is a woman who admitted that she would never go to a little-known organization “without a name”, about which it is necessary to explain what it is. The importance of “identifying oneself with a certain community” is also noted by Alexander Evdokimenko (“for example, the military has a specific motive – wearing a uniform”).

It is wrong to consider some reasons and motives for choosing a job as good, and others as bad – to each his own. The question is different: is the choice made in favor of one or the other by the person himself? Is this his desire?

“People often do not think seriously about what is the main thing for them in life, for which they respect themselves, and do not dare to honestly answer themselves the question of what place in this self-respect is played by what and how they earn,” notes Natalya Tumashkova . – It often turns out that money as an incentive for work is an illusion.

As therapeutic practice shows, in chasing financial success and the social labels that go with it, people sometimes just try to prove to their long-dead parent that they are worth something. And sometimes for them this is the only condition for psychological safety.

In the same way, the position “money is not important to me at all” can be cunning. Still, in order to earn them, you need to get up from the couch, on which a person can be kept, for example, by the fear of failure from childhood, and not at all by the pathological laziness and irresponsibility attributed to him by his relatives.

To find out what motivates us to work more, the American psychologist and behavioral economist Dan Ariely conducted a series of studies. One of them was as follows: the participants were given sheets with letters, the same ones had to be paired.

The first group handed over the signed works to the organizer, who looked through them and folded them. The sheets of the second, on which names and surnames were not indicated, were collected without looking. The answers of the third group were immediately sent to the shredder.

Under the terms of the experiment, less and less money was supposed to be paid for each subsequent task, but the participants in the second and third groups demanded to double the agreed amount. The first group did not ask for a raise, since they needed a conditional recognition – that their work was not destroyed or ignored.

But according to the statistics of the recruiting agency Kelly Services for 2012, 76% of Russian employees still name wages as the main motivator. And it is understandable why many do not dare to leave a job that pleases only with stability – and not even always with the level of salary.

“One of the effective tools to keep a person in the workplace is credit dependence,” notes Alexander Evdokimenko. – Many people work to return debts for already purchased goods and experience psychological fear of a situation of uncertainty, uncertainty. People are naturally afraid of leaving themselves and their families without a livelihood.”

“If you have nothing to pay for an apartment, you don’t really have to choose,” Alla Kuznetsova agrees. “First of all, it is necessary to ensure the satisfaction of basic needs.” Another thing is if the financial issue is not acute and circumstances allow you to take risks and change your boring job to your favorite business.

The business coach cites the example of the founders of Google, Facebook, Apple, or, say, Quentin Tarantino, who worked in a video store and then directed Pulp Fiction. “He just wanted to make this film without thinking about millions,” she says. – Together with recognition and popularity, they came for him themselves.

Obsessed passionaries who invest their souls and sincerely believe in what they are doing are often caught up with success and money, although they have never been an end in themselves for these people.

Growth in revenue and inquiries

Another popular query-question in search engines is “Why is there always little money?” (74 million links). Probably, it is asked not only by those for whom, when choosing a vocation and work, it is primary. “A bigger salary always provides more opportunities,” says Alexander Evdokimenko, “and for some time there is more motivation to work.”

But it is important to remember that we adapt quite quickly to positive changes, including financial ones. “I remember how I was waiting for a raise, how I thought that then I could afford …

But when I nevertheless received an increased salary, I soon suddenly realized that again I didn’t have enough for everything I would like, 27-year-old Elena complains, my list of desires also became larger, and not in proportion to income.

A study by American psychologist Ed Diener, professor at the University of Illinois, and his colleagues confirmed that income growth can indeed make us happier, but only on the condition that our desires and demands do not grow even faster. Which is very likely in a consumer society.

“This culture is about getting pleasure in exchange for spending money quickly. Advertising shapes our way of life, affects our dreams, thus causing us a certain dependence, – Alexander Evdokimenko warns. “You need to pull yourself out of these emotional traps and be more critical of your consumer behavior.”

Alla Kuznetsova explains the desire to acquire some things by external reference: “A person himself does not really know what he wants, but then he saw something from someone, ran and bought it too, without even thinking about whether he needed it and whether it was on This is money. You have to be able to separate: yes, some people can afford it, but what do I have to do with it?

Another reason for rash purchases beyond their means is low self-esteem. There is an illusion that the appearance of a fabulously expensive thing can help to gain respect and status as a person, which this thing already possesses.

Many lack the skill of budgeting. And in this case, it is very disciplined to have a goal for which you need to save. “As a rule, money is found and “as if by itself” is set aside for what you really need and important,” says Natalya Tumashkova.

She talks about the theory of dividing people into categories: with the psychology of “beggars” (with objective financial viability, they always have the feeling that this is just random luck and it will end soon), with the psychology of “millionaires” (even with a complete collapse, they are sure that this is temporary difficulty) and with the position that yes, there is not enough for luxury, but for everything you need – it’s enough, and this is not an obstacle to the pleasure of life.

“The main thing,” Natalya sums up, “is to find yourself, and the dream job will follow.”