If you are like me, when you checked your bank account last Friday morning only to find that you weren’t in fact $100 million better off, you felt a slight pang of disappointment.
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We all know the chances of actually winning the big one, and yet ultimately, someone always wins, don’t they?
We dream of answering the phone after the lotto draw and we rehearse what we’d say … no? Just me? Hmph, well, OK then.
The lucky woman who won the division 1 jackpot has been quoted as saying that she won’t quit her job as she works in healthcare and is really passionate about what she does. Many people have rolled their eyes at this and I overhead one such skeptic say to her friend “I give it a month and she’ll be out the door.”
But you know what? If I HAD actually come into more than $107 million last week, I wouldn’t quit my job either.
This insight got me thinking about all the lotto players who had selected their numbers and bought their tickets, hoping against all odds that their numbers would come barrelling down the little shoot to line up in a neat row in the machine.
The realisation that so many people are pinning their hopes on a game on telly played with painted balls and then trudging off to work the following day when their grand plan for eternal wealth and happiness fell through was a sobering one.
I work with a lot of people who are playing things safe, taking the easy road.
The realisation that so many people are pinning their hopes on a game on telly played with painted balls and then trudging off to work the following day when their grand plan for eternal wealth and happiness fell through, was a sobering one.
They’re walking the path well-trodden, and there is nothing wrong with this, if it is what makes you happy.
Can you honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say that you are happy with where you are at in your career?
If you can’t, what is stopping you? Why are you settling for misery?
This may come as a shock to some of you, but you don’t need to win the lottery to be happy. If the winning the lottery is your main career goal, you may want to consider re-evaluating your approach to managing your career. Do you spend time thinking about how you would spend all that money?
Do you plan out the business that you would start and the car that you would buy?
Have you mentally designed the house that you want to build and found the parcel of land that you are going to build it on? If you have, that is some serious planning that you are putting into the achievement of your lotto pipe-dream.
There is nothing wrong with that, but just imagine if you put that kind of energy into managing your career, as well?
Career development is not something that people regularly think consciously about, but if we all did, we would be going places.
People often shy away from having long-term career goals through fear of setting expectations in stone, but your career development doesn’t need to be defined by job titles.
In fact, goals set in stone like this really have no place in the current labour market as the projected market expectations are essentially disruption and change.
Looking at progress, promotion, industry, development, location and values are just as important as the kind of work that you do.
Is winning division 1 lotto really the only “out” that is available to you if you aren’t happy in the job that you are doing? While many of us would find our bliss in living our lives without obligation to a work schedule, is this the only pathway to happiness?
I work with so many people who genuinely hate their job, but feel trapped in it because they haven’t taken the time to plot a path to a new career destination.
Take the time to really think about your current situation; note what you would like to be different.
Think as if there are no barriers to your success and be honest with yourself with regards to what a purposeful, happy life would look like to you.
Once you understand the nature of your discontent, you will find yourself better equipped to plot a path to a better, more satisfying career.
And, ultimately, a happier you, where winning the lottery is purely optional.
Zoë Wundenberg is a careers writer, counsellor and coach with Impressability www.impressability.com.au