Finding your life’s work should not be your life’s work! Yet globally, over 75% of those employed are disengaged, checked out, and counting the hours to the end of their shift. This is a complete waste of potential and there is another way. Although there are a lot of inspirational quotes about following your bliss or loving what you do, how do you figure out what your bliss is or how to follow it?

The simple answer is through self-awareness. Once you are clear about your strengths, your values, your goals, your preferences, your vision, and the contribution you want to make, then you have the pieces to a meaningful career. Once you’ve identified those pieces, you can start arranging them, creating a design of a beautiful career mosaic that you can build out, step by step.

Unfortunately, the simple answer is not always the easiest one to take. Self-awareness is challenging, confusing, and sometimes lonely. We may have to face that the decisions we’ve made have been based on someone else’s expectations of us or how society measures success rather that how we do. For some people, self-examination simply goes against their grain. Yet if you want to do work that you love and live a life that is rich and meaningful to you, you’ll need to take some difficult steps.

Fortunately, you don’t have to do this alone!