What I’m about to share with you shouldn’t be a secret anymore. And I’ll warn you right now that it’s going to sound unbelievable.

Every time it’s happened over the years, I’ve found myself thinking: “Another one?!? I get to see another one!?! How can this be?”

And if these weren’t the stories of my very own clients from the last 7 years I still wouldn’t believe it.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t the only one in disbelief. My clients – they were too. And this article (+ exercise you can download below) is about preparing for something that might seem unbelievable, but that really happens all the time – it’s called ‘writing your own ticket.’

It has something to do with what you radiate – the energy in the quality of your being that has the phone ringing with an invitation to write your own ticket. When someone wants you they’re not only willing to negotiate salary – they’ll negotiate the whole job.

It happens when you reorient to how you work, which doesn’t necessarily mean that what you do for work is different. I’ve witnessed my clients get asked to write the job that they’d like to do and get paid for. Or asked to restructure an old job “description” that they had so that it consists of more of what they want to do and less of what they don’t.

So since this happens more often than you think (and it will happen especially if you’ve been creating your work from the inside-out), I thought you might like to prepare for the day that opportunity comes “a knockin’.” Quite. Literally.

The “tipping point” of your inner work has a real life result that is inevitable, rather than probable. Given this, it’s highly (career) advisable not to quit before the miracle happens. But by the time you’re asked to write your own ticket without anything concrete to respond with that makes sense and represents you well for the occasion, the time to prepare for your fairy tale come true is actually gone.

In reality, if you wait for this day to arrive before you actually speak the truth of your heart’s desire in your work, you won’t be satisfied by what you’ve create because all you can and will think of is what you didn’t want that you’ve had in the past.

Deals can and do turn sour. All because you didn’t think that what is happening could actually happen to you.

Someone will come out of the woodwork one day and they will say: “I want to work with YOU. Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”

What are you going to say?

Here’s what my clients end up saying + thinking when they are confronted with something they only dreamed was possible:

“I don’t want a full-time job.”
“I don’t want to work in an office.”
“I don’t want to be micro-managed.”
“I don’t want to have no resources.”
“I don’t want to get back aches from being at a desk all day.”
“I don’t want to work too much.”

Have you noticed the theme here?

They are very clear on what they don’t want. Often they have a really great person listening to this who then says: “Okay, great, so tell me what you do want and let’s do it.”

And then comes the panic.

Think you’ll do it differently?

Check. Give it a try. Imagine someone is asking you what you want. Write for five minutes and see if what you share would be helpful to a prospective employer. Then stop and review:

Is what you’ve written negative? No? Okay good. That’s a start. Now … is what you’ve written specific? Or is it so vague that someone would have to be Robert Langdon (from the Dan Brown series) to know exactly what you’re looking for? Or maybe you think that this would never, ever happen to you (you’re special, but not in that way darling) and so you’ve treated the exercise with pessimism or fear to the point that what you’ve written is fantastical in nature because it completely ignores who you are.

Word to the wise: If any of these apply – written in the negative, vague and coded and therefore very non-specific or fantastical to the point that it’s not you in your own body anymore – these are the subtle and not-so-subtle signs of sabotage that keep you from dreaming + acting when the time comes.

If you find yourself actually wanting to prepare + help to create such an opportunity in your life, then may I present to you everything you need for how to write your own ticket:

An exercise. For clarity. For confidence. For making career fairy tales come true. In. Real. Life.

Consider yourself warned that this wonderful event can be a wonderful event (and not a panic attack) if you’re willing to prepare. So for you, I’ve made a playsheet called: Your Ideal Work Sheet.

Download it (below) and if you’re feeling grateful, pay the gratitude forward by making a suggested donation of $5 to either of these two social profit (I don’t personally belief that there is such a thing as non-profit), “you have my heart-type” organizations. Nature or animals – you choose because that’s what inspires me to write for you. Thank you if you do. And if you can’t right now, please share the word in some way about one or both of these grass roots, front line, independent organizations that are friends making their career fairy tale come true:

Click here to pay the gratitude forward to animals at Semiahmoo Animal League Incorporated.

Click here to pay the gratitude forward to nature at Clayoquot Action.

The time to prepare for your self-concept is now. Download your very own Ideal Work Sheet: