Branch out to find work you love

Branch out to find work you love When you look for a job or change careers, what youre really looking for is a way to improve things in your life. But its hard to figure out what will really make things better and what will only make things worse. There are some things we all know: People who are in love are happier, and people who are chronically unemployed are less happy. But most of us arent dealing with such clear-cut extremes. Most of us ask ourselves on a regular basis, Whats the best kind of work situation for me? Yes, were all unique, but in truth we arent as unique as we think we are. So there are some rules we can all live by when looking for work well love. Liking What You Have Forget the deep analysis. Our brains are simply not optimized to figure out what well like. Instead, theyre optimized to figure out how to like what we have. This helps us on an evolutionary basis: We eat whats available, we take care of whatever kids we get, and so on. It doesnt help us in a job hunt, where we have to guess what we would like if we had it. Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, spent his whole career studying this sort of problem and published his findings in Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert concludes that were basically unable to know if well like a job until we try it, so self-analysis and market analysis arent going to get you very far. Start trying stuff. You dont have to quit your job to try things. Try new stuff on the weekend, volunteer for a project part-time, or ask for a temporary appointment to another department, for example. Be creative in how you learn about yourself. A job change doesnt have to be now or never it can be a process. That said, here are some guidelines you can use for deciding what youre going to try: • Dont go to grad school for humanities. You would have had a  better chance surviving on the Titanic  than getting a tenure-track professorship in the humanities. The competition for these jobs is fierce, and very few corporate jobs give preference to someone who has a masters in, say, early American history. • Dont be a lawyer. Suicide is among the  leading causes  of premature death among lawyers. You can tell yourself youll be different, but statistically speaking, you probably wont be. And while most lawyers dont kill themselves, this doesnt bode well for law being your dream career. • Look for control over your work. You might think that a manageable workload makes for a good job. But stress doesnt actually make for a bad job. In fact, some people do very well in high-stress situations. Some even do their best work that way. What drives people to burn out  is when they work very hard but cant meet their goals. The people most likely to burn out from their jobs, then, are those who are supposed to help children in helpless situations (at hospitals, for example) but cant stop the pain. Entrepreneurs, however, are known for working 18-hour days, and frequently love their work because theyre accomplishing something that excites them. So the most important thing about enjoying your work, according to Alan Krueger, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, is having control over it when you do it, how you do it, and what you accomplish. People really like to be able to control the thermostat themselves, Krueger says. • Work where you can find a friend. If you have one good friend at work, its a really  good bet that youll like your job, according to a Gallup study published in the book Vital Friends by Tim Rath. Take a look at the place youre thinking of working. Do the people there look happy? Workplaces that promote friendship are more productive, and more fulfilling. There are a lot of ways to judge whether or not youll be likely to make a friend at a new job. But one factor we often forget is architecture. Office space that promotes collaboration and taking a moment to say hi is space that is good for making friends. • Dont work with jerks. Conversations that are insulting have five times the impact on your day than positive conversations. Unfortunately, we have a great memory for the unpleasant. Daniel Gilberts research supports this, but Bob Sutton, a professor at Stanford University, specializes in the jerk at work. Sutton warns that if you work with jerks, you become one.  His book  gives advice on how to make sure you dont end up working with these toxic people, and his web site gives you a way to  test yourself  to see if youre a jerk yourself. After all, if youre the jerk, youre going to have a pretty hard time finding an office without one. Work Life vs. Life Life As you search for your new career, collecting advice as you go, remember that the stakes arent as high as you might think. A job is not your life. Your personal life is your life, and your job supports that. The people who are most overwhelmed with career choices are the ones who think a career makes a life. So dont be afraid to try a lot of options, and dont be afraid to relax a little.