Is Your Career As Meaningful As You'd Like?

". . . This opening to the life we have refused again and again until now." David Whyte, Poet

I have a friend who works with people who want to shift where they are in their lives. She helps them create this shift on very deep levels.

She told me of a couple she worked with recently. They were both professional people with great careers and both were well-respected.

However, as she took them through her process, she reported these changes: the man, who was a chiropractor, had taken up sculpting. As he underwent the process, he became clear that being a sculptor was what he had wanted to do all his life. By the end of their sessions, he was making plans to close his chiropractic office and become a full-time sculptor.

The woman decided to stay in her profession of education, but wanted to change direction in terms of 'how' she would relate to that profession.

I was struck by this example because I could imagine the friends and family of this couple, looking from the outside in, thinking, "Well, they are so established in their careers. They are making a positive difference in people's lives and they are making a good living."

But viewed from the INSIDE, that is, from the place of something having been refused again and again, as the poet David Whyte says, we realize there was so much more work purpose and career meaning that was lacking in both their lives.

They, at least, took that journey into the place of not-knowing and allowed themselves enough of an inner opening to finally hear that voice in each of them that had been wanting to be heard for years.

How many of us still have a place inside us where life is knocking, wanting to be heard, wanting us to open to it?

Are we going through our careers feeling mildly contented, but not excited and on fire for what we are doing? Do we awaken each morning, knowing we have a work purpose and meaningful career that satisfies us to the bone?

Or might we be like the couple I just described, with careers that seem externally satisfying while we ignore the something more that life is asking us to be or do?

How can you know if you have an inner voice that you've been refusing to hear?

Try answering this key question: If I died next month, would I have done everything I wanted to do with my life? Then use the following questions to help clarify your thinking.

What projects do I still want to undertake?
What do I want to yet experience?
What places do I want to visit?
What groups do I want to serve?
What, in my current career, do I still want to experience?
In what ways do I want to make a larger contribution?

Henry David Thoreau said that most people live lives of quiet desperation and they die with their music still in them. Are you one of those?

What music do you want to make in your career? How can you create work purpose and career meaning out of what you are doing now?

Take a little quiet time to answer these questions for yourself, and any others that may occur. You, too, may find yourself in contact with that opening for your life that you have been refusing to look at.

Don't be afraid. If you release the courage to look within, you may find your greatest career expression waiting for you.

Instead of refusing to look, say 'Yes' to the exploration. You will be glad you did. You may even find that your ideal career is still waiting for you.

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