10 Steps to Escaping the Job World and Creating the Life You Really Want

The Buddhists call it "right livelihood." Others have referred to it as living the "good life," not in the sense of financial riches but in doing what you want to do and living where you want to live.

You know you are living the good life, says career counselor and best-selling author Barbara Sher when "you get up in the morning and can't wait to start all over again."

For some this means going for that total career change – from accountant to photographer, social worker to freelance writer, marketing manager to master gardener. For these people, the good life is when your passion also pays your way.

For others it's enjoying a better integration between work and family. A lot of people love the idea of working from home and being their own boss. Still others find themselves drawn to the idea of downshifting to a simpler lifestyle with fewer possessions – and pressures.

For me, having a life worth living is about all these things – and more. My vision of the good life starts with the commitment to bring a certain intentionality to my life, to be an active participant instead of a mere observer. Doing work that feeds my soul is absolutely central to the equation, as is working for myself. My vision of the good life is reflected in the motto I chose for Changing Course: Live Life on Purpose, Work at What You Love, and Follow Your Own Road.

There are as many dreams as there are people. Few, though, harness their dream to a practical plan of action. The catalyst for leaving my well paying corporate job to pursue my version of the good life was the sudden death of my mother in 1993.

Since that time, I've thought a lot about what it takes to go from having a dream to actually living it.

Through much reading and many conversations with fellow travelers on the road to a more meaningful work/life, I've discovered that getting from "there" to "here" comes down to a series of clearly identifiable steps:

1. Get The Point

2. Get the Picture

3. Get Clued Into Your Calling

4. Get a Grip

5. Get Real

6. Get Informed

7. Get Ready

8. Get Support

9. Get Going

10. Get Present

I thought you might enjoy reading the first of the 10 Steps to Escape the Job World and Creating the Life You Really Want. I hope the article inspires you to explore, for yourself, what it would be like to live a life you love.

Step 1: Get the Point – Life is For Living

Gathered over tuna sandwiches, fruit salad, and iced tea in the company cafeteria, Tina and a group of coworkers engage in their favorite lunch time activity – commiserating about their jobs. Topping the agenda that day: inept management, office politics and the latest in a seemingly constant series of reorganizations.

Twenty minutes has passed and Tina looks at her watch realizing it's time to get back to work. "Well you know what they say," she says with a deep sigh, "life sucks and then you die." Everyone nods knowingly as they reluctantly pick up their trays and head back to work.

The surroundings, the menu and the "complaints du jour" may change, but this workplace lament is echoed every day by millions of frustrated, unhappy workers who feel stuck in their jobs. Like Tina and her coworkers, we shrug off our discontent and dream of retirement – or, if we're lucky, of hitting the lottery.

This sense of hopelessness is not surprising really. I, like so many, had come to believe that sacrificing our happiness, our health and our dreams for a paycheck was some immutable law of life. In the past few years, though, my thinking has shifted.

Now I realize that when our dreams are larger than our belief in our right to pursue them, it's probably because we are missing what I have come to think of as The Point – capital letters intentional. There are many reasons why so many otherwise intelligent people miss The Point. Much of it, I think, has to do with the commonly accepted definition of success that says, in essence, you are what you own. In a thoughtful analysis in Business Ethics magazine, Dr. Sally Power speaks to the insidious cycle that keeps so many people working long hours at the expense of all else.

From landscaping services to in-home dog groomers to a $300 all-in-one contraption that wakes you with an alarm bell, makes your coffee, fries two eggs and toasts your bread at the push of a button, Americans are willing to pay for all kinds of time-saving services and devices designed to help us juggle our busy lives. Yet, says Power, there is a catch. In order to afford these products and services we have to maintain the heavy workload that makes these things desirable in the first place.

"The choice to consume more," writes Gary S. Cross, in his book Time and Money "is the choice to be more exhausted. You make a decision to have weaker family ties, to have fewer friends."

But missing The Point isn't always about money. Some people, it seems, don't seem to get The Point because they operate under the mistaken belief that they don't have THE RIGHT to pursue their heart's content. That somehow suffering through 40 years of job misery is the price we must all pay for the joys of retirement. This is unfortunate indeed. Because the simple truth of the matter is, if you don't feel entitled to go after the life you want, you're destined to keep the one you already have.

Now I don't pretend nor, for that matter, even aspire to know THE DEFINITIVE POINT. I'll leave that to those far wiser and more thoughtful than I to discern. But I do know this much – when it comes to our final reflection, far more of us will look back and wish we'd done MORE in our lives than wish we'd done LESS. And I, for one, think that's a shame.

Apparently I'm not alone. Recent surveys suggest that more and more people seem to be getting The Point. Forty-six percent of Americans surveyed by a recent Harris poll said "success" to them is not about work and/or money but about family and/or children. Another survey found of the top 20 considerations in choosing a job, a position that allowed for a personal life was rated number two, significantly higher than salary, which was ranked sixteenth.

These findings would not surprise trend expert Faith Popcorn, who, in 1991, predicted a growing number of baby-boomers would be "cashing out" of the corporate world. As Popcorn sees it, "In the seventies, we worked to live. In the eighties, we lived to work. Now we simply want to live – long and well." Good Point.

Sometimes we get The Point because our complacent world has somehow been shaken. Change, loss, and close calls all serve as painful reminders of just how precious and fleeting this time we call "my life" really is. My own personal wake-up call came when my mother died unexpectedly at age 61. She died too young – just five months shy of her long-awaited retirement to Florida. Losing my mother was the hardest thing I think I've ever experienced. Her own dreams deferred, I realized I could no longer put my own on hold. Perhaps, as the numbers of baby-boomers experiencing the aging or loss of their own parents increase, they too will begin to really get The Point.

One of the most compelling articles I've read on this subject appeared ten years ago in a magazine called Special Issue which dedicated an entire edition to people who had pursued their dreams. In her article, "Dreams are not Enough," nurse-turned-writer Elizabeth Berg shares the lessons she came to learn about the importance of following one's bliss. Asking and then answering her own question she writes, "What happens to our dreams? They die of lack of nourishment, that's what. 'Later,' we say and when we turn around, they're gone."

The turning point for Elizabeth came while caring for terminally-ill people in the hospital. So many of her patients, she says, were full of regrets about places never traveled to and dreams never acted upon. Sadly for them, The Point had been realized too late.

Even when we were silent together," Elizabeth explains, "I felt those people asking me, 'What was so important that I didn't take more risks?' 'Why didn't I understand that my chances wouldn't be there forever?' I couldn't answer them.

I was making the same mistake they had assuming that 8 a.m. Monday to 8 a.m. Tuesday lasted much longer than 24 hours. Their gift to me was the understanding that it does not. It is 24 hours exactly, and 24 hours is astonishingly brief."

Which brings us back to The Point – something that, in the final analysis, almost always seems to have something to do with the fact that life is so very short and precious. And because, as the song goes, "we will never pass this way again," it is up to us, and us alone, to strive to make the most of our dreams and talents, to appreciate fully the many gifts around us, and to bring happiness to our own lives and to the lives of others. Or, as Elizabeth urges us, "to fill the hours we are given with the things that are right for us."

The risks and rewards of living a purposeful life will be measured daily. But when the great wrap-up party of life is near, I, for one, wish to experience the ultimate prize of being among the lucky few who can slip away to that Great Reward unencumbered by regretful "what ifs."

Step one to escaping the corporate world (or the public sector or whatever unfulfilling circumstance you find yourself in) requires a whole lot more than "Thank-God-It's-Friday" gripe sessions around the water cooler. Your escape must be a Pointed endeavor. An endeavor based on a strong sense of purpose and a belief that you not only have the RIGHT to control your own destiny, but in fact that the adventure of TRULY living life on purpose is, in the end, The Whole Point.

© Copyright Valerie Young, Changing Course

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When I got here, I felt like I had come home after a very, very long time.

Libra Cusack, who with her husband and son, moved from Connecticut to Cliff Island, a community with 60 year-round residents, eight miles off the coast of Maine.

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