What are those first things you take into count before you go for a career change? Do you feel that you do not fit in any job position and keep changing positions, and it looks like no job is the right fit? Or maybe, you are scared to make a career change because you don´t even know your strong skills? Or on the other hand, you can´t identify what stops you from taking the final decision or setting up a realistic strategy to move forward?

Mission: This is the core purpose of an individual or company. It is the summary of the aims and core values. A mission clearly tells others what you do. A mission is comprehensive but also very specific to set you apart from other individuals. And it is one of the first things to look at before to do any career change.

1. Do you like your job?
2. Do you think you will like it in 20 or 30 years?

Most people in the world do not like their job. If we look at statistics, nine of 10 people do not like what they do. That makes 90% of people worldwide not enjoying their job. This can be because human beings do not want to work, or maybe we have universally horrible bosses.

What I really think is that we have no clue on how to choose the right job. 

When it comes the time to decide, most people look at those things below, in this exact order:

1. Salary
2. Location
3. Benefits
4. Holidays

Harvard University made a study asking if those 4 things above made you happy. The answer was no, and the result of the highest single impact to love your job was a purpose. People who think there’s meaning to their work are more than three times as likely to stay in their job. They have higher job satisfaction, so more engagement as well.

 I’m not trying to tell like everyone else that you need to find your dream job, as I believe the dream job does not exist. Because we learn about what we like or what we want to do through practice, not theory. You cannot know if you are good or bad at anything if you don’t try it first. That will involve trial and error but will also include strategy and research within yourself. And here is the secret, you need to find your mission, not a job title or fitting skills in your job description.

I’m sure if you start to dig deeper before to decide any career change, starting with your purpose (you can see my blog about purpose😊). Your purpose is your why? Why you do what you do? And it is essential to make the right career change.

Your mission will be the what? What you do to achieve your purpose? And to find your mission, you will need to reply to those fundamental questions:

1. What is it that you like about your job?
2. Things that you do well, and you are good at.
3. What is it that other’s say you do well?

I always said, and If you read my history will see that I took the long route to get here. But if I really analyse it, I’ve found my mission from the beginning, just in different job titles.

 I started at 18 my first job working in a clothing store, advising people on their outfits. I was an accountant and office manager in a water supply company, advising people how to get their water supply sorted out. In my sabbatical year in San Diego, I volunteer in the American Red Cross in a call center, advising people on making their donations for the tsunami in Japan in 2011. I was advising people again but this time serving as well to a bigger goal. Then I started to work in the tourism industry, first as a receptionist and then in B2B travel agencies; I was still advising people travelling around the world. If I really think about it, my mission has been clear all the way. What I do best is give advice to people. If we go further, and more personally, I always have been the person to go for my close family and friends, even co-workers, for advice.

As you can see, my mission was there all along, just different job titles, and maybe not really aligned with my purpose or vision.

As I already said in another post, we live obsessed with passion; when we are in high school or in university, it is all that we always have heard about; we need to find our passion. 

But passion is a feeling, and feelings change.

We need to go more at the core of things, the roots, what does not move, and this will be our purpose and our mission because if what we do does not have a meaning, we cannot engage, we cannot get our full potential, so we cannot be fully fulfilled and happy.

That will be key to find the right place for you to work, match your mission and values with the enterprise, and prepare your career mission statement to attract the right employers and apply to the job offers that will really fit you.

 Now you can take the first step in discovering your mission, apart from doing the work of replying to those questions above. You should start from the basement and start working on your core values. 

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Remember, the best day to create something is TODAY!