In recent days I’ve been exploring ways to feel your way into the perfect job for you, recognising that the more you have a felt sense of your perfect job the more likely you are to be inspired to find it.

In this last posting on this topic (OK, at least for now) I offer the simplest of questions which you can ask yourself about the job you really yearn to do – and perhaps the most powerful.  This question comes from my NLP trainings and is the number one question for coaches everywhere (and no doubt others, too):  what do you want?

Well, actually, there’s a supplementary question, too.  And it’s this little supplementary question that gives the first question its power and that is:  what would that do for you?  So, what do you want in your new job?  (Let’s say:  “I want to lead a business out of the current recession”).  And what would that do for you?  (“It would give me the thrill of turning around a business which otherwise could go under”).  And what would that do for you?  (“It would meet my need to contribute to our economic recovery”).  And what would that do for you?  (“I just want to make a positive difference to people, to conribute, to offer hope…”).  You get the gist!

This powerful little question takes us from the surface manifestation of a dream to the underlying needs that would be met by fulfilling that dream.  In the language of Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life, this is the difference between recognising the strategy by which we meet meet a need and connecting with the need itself.  You know you’ve connected with the core of your dream when you feel you’ve connected with your dream – everything in your body changes at this moment of recognition.

Several things happen when we explore this question which are invaluable to the job hunter (and to anyone else come to that):

• Firstly, as we get closer and closer to recognising the needs we think our dream job will meet we experience a felt sense of this perfect job.  This is, if you like, another way of “trying it on for size”.  In terms of the way we feel, connecting with our needs in this way is pretty much as good as meeting them!  At least in this moment of connection we experience the quality of feeling we would like to experience in our lives on an ongoing basis;
• Also, recognising our underlying needs can open up new options as we realise “Ah!  If that’s the need I’m trying to meet, I could do it in this way, too, and this way…!”
• Occasionally, as we connect with the need we recognise that our initial choice of how to meet the need was, frankly, way off beam.  If caring for your family is your number one priority for example, maybe the high flying job that takes you all over the world supplies the money you want to earn …but not the opportunity to stay closely involved and connected with your loved ones in your every day lives.

 So, I invite you to try on this powerful pair of questions and of course, be sure to let me know how you get on.

PS I love Rosenberg’s book!  So much so that I’ve set up this link so that, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee if you buy this book using the link in this posting.