No love left for your job that is.
Time to move on. That much is clear to you, but to what?
Before moving on just yet, even a quick reflection and moment of insight can impact how you go on from here. No matter whether by chance or by design, you had a role to play in arriving at this moment in time.
When in a panic, the mind believes that action will save the day.
Outward action without inner action will just create more of what you’ve had in the past.
The question that then hangs suspended before your very eyes was asked better by none other than Mary Oliver:
Tell me, what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Ever wonder?
Ever wonder why you even have a resume?
Most people are unaware of their reason. Most people believe that their resume is a summary or showcase of their past achievements and work history. Most people believe that their resume is a way to demonstrate their competency for a job that they want. Most people believe that the resume is a document that “gets their foot in the door” so that they can “wow” the prospective employer in person. The list goes on of course.
Enough about everyone else though.
Let’s just talk about you.
Get a sheet of paper or grab your journal and answer these four questions with whatever comes to mind:
- In your mind, what is the purpose of a resume?
- As a result of your response to question 1, what is your experience of creating content for your resume?
- As a result of your response to question 1, what behaviours have your engaged in en route to finding fulfilling work?
- Are you totally at peace and comfortable with all your responses to question 2 and 3?
Let’s break it down …
Your answer to question 1 is a belief that you hold. Based on that belief it creates your thoughts and behaviours, which you answered in questions 2 and 3. Question 4 is your insight. Either you are happy with what you are creating or you are not. If you are not happy with your resume writing experience, read on. If you are – why are you reading this?!
…
More than a majority do not find the task of getting ready to look for work pleasant.
When the process isn’t pleasant, what then do you expect the results to be like?
The secret, the trick, the technique, the strategy … whatever you want to call it – lies simply in your approach. Which begins with the belief of the resume’s purpose.
One of the very first things that I do when I sit down with people who want to experience greater meaning in their careers, deeper satisfaction and have more fun making money is to really take a look at their resume.
A resume is (and I hope that you emblazon this somewhere into your psyche as your new response to question 1):
A resume is a tool that creates your future.
You are a creator and because human beings do not come with labels, your resume is a personalized instruction manual for not only how to make use of you, but an expression of how you enjoy being of service in the world. When you give your resume to someone, they ought to be able to see clearly whether or not they can provide an environment for you to thrive in.
Your most sacred abilities must be on your resume in order for you to find life-serving and joy producing ways to contribute.
It’s the only responsible thing we ever need to do on the planet that gets avoided the most.
Surprised? You needn’t be. It’s the purpose of your dissatisfaction. To understand that you choose whether you have fun making your moola or not.
…
Abstain from judgment – suspend it for a moment (and if you can’t, I ask you to wonder aloud why you have a need to be so critical of yourself and if that’s the most useful way to spend your time given that you’re about to have a HUGE insight that could actually change the course of your life).
Now – take a copy of your resume and highlight everything on that resume (worded as is – without changing anything right now) that you truly enjoy doing. These are the things that make you want to get up out of bed in the morning to show up and do your thang!
Done? Okay …
What’s not highlighted is all the stuff on your resume that you have little true interest or desire in doing (as they are worded anyway).
What’s important to understand is that you are not to blame for your role in creating the dissatisfaction, but rather to realize that you have the capacity to create.
Own this capacity. Take it. It’s yours. Whether you realize it or not. Becoming aware of it is all you need to do.
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2 responses to “When there’s no love left … check your resume”
I totally get and am in total agreement that that is what a resume SHOULD be about, but I live in the real world with recruiters and human resources departments that wouldn’t give a resume like that a second glance. It’s all about job titles and “real life” experience.
And what happens if your resume doesn’t have anything on it that you want to do, i.e., every job that you’ve held was soul-crushing? How do you write a resume and get a career that you want without the experience, short of starting over or going back to school?
Hi Colleen,
I can appreciate where you’re coming from. The reason that I can speak as I do is because I used to be a recruiter and I worked in HR and I used to be the person that took only the most “soul-crushing” jobs that I could find. Only I wasn’t aware of this for a long time. It wasn’t until I realized that I was the one expecting myself to work in a soul-crushing way that I started approach work differently. Only then did I get results that I liked much better and started to teach people my approach because they wanted the same results. They got the same results. Yes, in the real world.
To be able to see your life differently, with everyone that I’ve ever worked with (and it’s been a couple of hundred now), I’ve witnessed self-forgiveness as a key ingredient to enjoying future work (experiences). The gem within that can be incorporated onto a resume is this: Everything that you previously thought was “unmarketable” or dismissed as “unimportant” about yourself was really your strength and competitive advantage when viewed with a (realistic) perspective. But you need to be willing to let go of the story that your life was a mistake up to now to have any use for your past (that’s the self-forgiveness part).