Showing posts with label your dream job. Show all posts
Showing posts with label your dream job. Show all posts

What will you be when you grow up?

Did your parents tell you that you could achieve anything? People sometimes say there weren't that many choices when they were growing up. But my parents said I could do whatever I wanted to do. (Isn't that a good thing? I wish all parents would say that! But I digress...)

Some of my dream job ideas when I was growing up
I did consider some unusual choices for a job, like scientist, inventor, time traveler, treasure hunter, etc. but usually came back to my Serious List of journalist, writer, artist, environmentalist, or teacher (among others).

Fate steered me in another direction altogether. 
Events seemed to derail my plans of staying in school, so instead of going on past my B.A. to get trained for something (I had an English degree because I had to graduate finally and had more credits in this...) I then got a "Job job".

What is a "Job job"? 
You know what this is; it's the real kind of job where you work full time and support yourself. You start at the bottom and work your way up. You learn all the basics from people who are there already, then learn all you can. If you are lucky, you move on to learn more and get an even better position.

I did learn many things and moved into several responsible positions, including Assistant Manager at a small printshop. Then later I moved into a job at a larger firm, becoming a graphic artist and proofreader there.

Sometimes people move backwards at their job instead of forwards. 
It's when I began being regularly assigned the entry-level kinds of things I did when I first started out that I first knew I should go back to school. I was back where I started, going backwards instead of learning new things. It was just a matter of time, I decided.

I do like to learn new things. Luckily, going backwards was not something I had to do for long. Even though I had taught myself computing from the ground up, all kinds of computer programs, scheduling, design, etc. in the printing trade, it seemed as though my age and lack of certification finally did me in and I was laid off. Perhaps I should have gone back to school a lot earlier, I thought.
Since my grandmother had been a teacher, I thought that doing that might be fun too. I had both English and Art to pick from, and I picked English, thinking that would have more jobs available.

Now after going through school again, my dream list has changed. 
I learned so much going back to school. Now I have a brand new list of What I Want to Be When I Grow Up. It turns out being a writer can apply to somebody who has a blog. Who knew? And now I can be published so much easier than ever before. I have already done 2 (free) books and plan to polish them up and add to them for a pay version this or next year.
I also learned that even though things don't always go my way, I can always choose a new path. Am I grown up yet? That's a good question. In one sense, being responsible, I can say yes, I am.

I don't like to be stuck in a job I don't like. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking this. 
I don't think it's part of growing up to feel that you must be unhappy to be a grownup. I do not think that being grown up means being stuck to one dream, or (worse) being stuck in somebody else's dream. I hope you are not in that position, because I know how it feels to be stuck.
Personally, I now have more than one dream, as always. But now my dreams about my "perfect job" have changed. I think this is part of growing as a person, no matter what your age is.

Here are some questions for you, my reader, to answer.
My questions to my readers today are these: What are or were YOUR dreams? What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you change your mind later? Will you go back to school to try and realize one or more of them?

Tell me why you feel as you do.

I really look forward to reading my comments!
Former Nontraditional Stude

Thanks for stopping by to read my blog today.

And here are some more of my Nontrad links:
The Nontrad site and blog
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Come and join me there too. Thanks!

FYI: The other neat pieces of clipart here on the blog are from the Clker Free clipart Site.

Want a new career? Try doing something you love, full time or part time.






Are you in a career rut? Only you can know that.
So. You have worked in the same industry for a long time. You feel like you might be in a rut. Every day is the same. You are SO used to what you are doing.

You might have a dream that some day you might be able to do something else. But is it worth going back to school and incurring so much debt on the way?

Not everyone has the money set aside to allow them to go back to school with no student debt. But for some, it is worth trying out their dream job, even if that means going back to school to get the training for it, debt or not. But for some people, it just is not worth it. That is why going back to school can be a very personal choice.

The first thing I think people need to think about is, what do you love? If you are doing a job and get "into the zone" while you are working, and the day goes by fast, the job you are doing just may be a good fit for you.

Some other questions you can ask yourself are: Do you enjoy the people you work with? Do you feel like you are doing something worthwhile? Then maybe your job is one that you can continue with your entire life. But you don't have to give up on your dreams. Maybe each thing you dream about can be a hobby for you. You can work at your same job, and explore your other interests on the side.

Will you want to go to school to learn more about your dream? Maybe. Maybe not!

Maybe you can look things up on the internet or at the library to find out more about it in your free time first. Perhaps full-time school is not for you right now. Maybe part-time school (outside of work) just may be. There are so many options today.

Many people just accept what happens to them, and never go past that. I think I myself used to be that way. I think asking myself some questions helped me. One question I asked that you can ask yourself is this: Have you explored what you really want from life? Are you fulfilled in your job?

Do you feel like there might be something different that you would enjoy doing with your life? If you answer yes to any of these questions, the next step might be taking a free aptitude test online.
Here are just a few I have found:

FunEducation has some neat quizzes and tests that you may like. They also have an IQ test there that they say is PhD. certified. This sounds a lot like the old Tickle tests. I had fun with the Tickle tests. Their site is no longer around, I am sad to say.

But the website points to:
TestQ, which also has IQ and interest tests.

The Career Zone is an interesting test page linked to from Columbus State Community College.
Then you can go from there and decide whether or not you want to learn more about your dream job or even your dream hobby.

Do you know of some good and free sites that help people learn more about themselves and what they may love to do with their job or life? I would love it if you would list those sites after this posting.

Have you thought about exploring other options in your work life? Do you think about doing other things in your spare time? Talk about it in your comment. I look forward to reading about it.

Nontraditionally yours,
-Betsyanne

Here are some other postings you may like:

Nontraditional student information from Twitter

The Good Stuff - - the nontraditional student page at the Federal Aid Page

Going back to school - should you? 

Some Nontrad links:  
The Nontrad site and blog 
Join Nontrads on Facebook Nontrads on Yahoo 
Nontrads on Twitter 

 
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