Show me the Money

Career Focus
25 September 2022

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How do I find a job I love and pays well?

It’s the #1 question I hear from young adults. Do you wonder about it too, even now?

Finding a Job You Love

I finished my first draft of my eBook for young adults, Career Advice: Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 24, this week. Many of you submitted your advice – thank you! – which I have included without identifying names, as requested.

I sorted the advice into three categories: Figuring It Out, Soft Skills, and Thriving. Then I added a chapter to bring it all together, Leadership.

In Figuring it Out, I talk about identifying your values, shining your light, visualizing your career dream, and handling Imposter Syndrome.

Soft Skills explores how team-based work requires integrating multiple viewpoints, how using your curiosity fuels your career growth, and the importance of taking rest so you can remain focused.

Thriving examines why you should ask for advice not feedback, how to find new perspectives when you’re stuck on a topic, identifying healthy boundaries so you can maintain long-term work-life balance, and adapting the Doughnut Economics model in both your workplace and your life.

Lastly, I outline a plan to apply it in a Leadership context, which is about creating a vision.

All of this is familiar to regular readers of Life fully loved.

In sum, the eBook talks about how to find a job you love.

Getting Paid Well

But what about the second part of the question: getting paid well. How do you do it?

Shift your mindset from scarcity to abundance.

If you can adopt this mindset, you will experience the happiness that comes from doing a job you love and earning a great income.

Feeling a sense of abundance is less about a dollar amount and more about feeling good. When you feel comfortable in your own skin, you’re happy. In contrast, comparing yourself to others introduces a lack/scarcity mentality. It never feels good to feel “in lack.”

The Comparison Game

There will always be someone richer, more successful, more [insert comparator here]. So, if you feel better than Joe because you earn more than Joe, then you’d better believe that there’s another person down the pipeline – Jane – who earns more than you. Comparison is a never-ending cycle that only perpetuates scarcity.

Abundance not Scarcity

Abundance is the opposite of scarcity. You change your mindset by changing your thoughts. In other words, when you adopt an abundance mentality you see there is enough for you and everyone else. There is no shortage.

Think of an apple pie. With an abundance mentality, pie slices don’t get smaller with more pieces getting cut. In fact, the pie gets bigger to accommodate more slices.

Shifting to an Abundance Mindset

Affirmations focused on abundance help with changing your mindset. You can find lots of those online. So does playing the “yes … and” game whereby you take any situation and, instead of inserting a “but”, which introduces the scarcity mentality, you replace the thought with “and.”

For example, instead of saying, “This pie is delicious but too many people want a slice so my slice is too small” try saying, “This pie is delicious and I can’t wait to bake more pies.”

Feeling Good

In the end, happiness isn’t about money. It’s about feeling good. We believe money will make us feel good which is why we conflate money with happiness. Happiness comes from within, from loving yourself.

Header Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash, Photo by micheile dot com on Unsplash, Photo by Dietmar Becker on Unsplash

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