Career success does not equal career duress.

I love teaching and training others. It’s both a constant joy and a challenge. I earned every penny my 8-year teaching career provided for me because no one had to dangle a fat salary in front of me to compel me to go the extra mile.

Too many people who seek the right career begin by dwelling on how much money they can make in a given field. They may know or sense they’re good at something totally different but shun their natural inclination because it won’t pay off.

I’m currently working with two new assistant trainers. They hate working with students all day; they can barely tolerate communicating with students for an hour at a time. But in their minds, this field is where the future is. The future becomes — out of economic necessity — their future also. But they will also become extremely unhappy and not nearly as successful as someone who’s legitimately drawn to the wonders of teaching.

Liking the idea of something is not enough. You have to like the actual work.

How satisfied are you with the quality of the time you spend at work?

Signs that your job has become a form of torture

I spent most of my 20s believing career success equals career duress. Some careers make us want to stab our eyes out with our boss’s Mont Blanc pen. My former boss tempted me every day I walked into the office. I never heard her thanking me for selling her products and bringing profit to her company.

All the signs that I hated my job glared at me. But I tolerated the job because I needed the money, and I believed I had to tolerate work I hated to earn a living.

Look for these signs:

• Does everything about your job irritate you?
• Do you snap at your colleagues and have a sinking feeling that you don’t like who you are anymore?
• Are you getting migraines, problems with digestion?
• When you start your work — whatever it is — do you feel something is always caught up in your throat?
• Is your job draining your energy?
• Do you always want to call in sick?
• Have you lost meaning in your career?

If so, I have an important question:

What the heck are you doing?

Why are you so intent on this? Is it because you love your job? Or, are you afraid? Afraid to quit, afraid of what it will say about you, afraid you will disappoint someone you love? Are you afraid you have already put so much time into your job you might as well see it through? (This is called “the sunk cost fallacy,” and it’s flawed reasoning.)

There is good news, though.

The misery of working a job I hated taught me something precious

As a saleswoman, I worked insane hours — not because I enjoyed it, but because I believed my miserable job was the price for getting money. Every night, I hurled my briefcase on the sofa and exclaimed, “Ugh. I hate my job!” My boyfriend heard me say this statement every night I came home. Instead of having the same old argument, “change your job to something you like,” he would put my tired feet on his lap and rub it to release tension from my body.

No one talks about how walking away from a job we hate is often as much a choice as it is an obligation.

“The worst thing in life that you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you’re not creative with and you’re not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.” — Robert Greene

There should be a degree of joy, of happiness, of satisfaction, in your work. If your job feels exhausting, if you are perpetually frustrated, if you feel like you are swimming against the current and never, ever carried by it, maybe you need to cut your losses and try your hand at something else.

At 28, the idea of work finally broke free from the idea of making a living.

Then the important question became not how to make money but what to work on. Now, the definition of my work is to make an original contribution to the world and not starve in doing so. I considered other options that light me up and make me feel a sense of wholeness (including my love of writing!). I realized my passion is for teaching. I like walking into a classroom or a training hall where something in my inner life overlaps with another consciousness. That might sound like I should be lighting sticks of incense and showing off my dream catcher collection, but it’s the best feeling in the world.

Think about it.

Is there another job, perhaps a job that puts a smile on your face when you wake up, you could be doing with the same amount of grit? If you can get paid to do something you don’t like, you can also get paid to do something you like.

In 8 years of delivering personal development courses to thousands of clients, I’ve learned work could be fun.

It took me years to grasp that.

Money is not the answer to the “right” career choice

Most people say, “Give me a million dollars and I’ll figure out what to do.” But it’s harder than it looks. Constraints give your life shape. Remove them, and most people have no idea what to do (look at what happens to those who win lotteries or inherit money). Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do.

Career success is not based on career duress — what a person believes he has to do to make a living. That’s not a shining prize. It may get you a paycheck, but it won’t get you where you want to (and ought to) go.

This well-founded decision helped me build my successful career as a personal development trainer.

Career success is when no one dangles a fat salary in front of you to go the extra mile. When you know in your bones, you are good at something, and you are willing to work hard to achieve your career dreams. It’s when work becomes a pleasure, something you’d engage in even if the financial rewards take years to achieve.

Finding work you consider both joyful and challenging is timeless

Some people are lucky enough to know what they want to do when they were 12. But, for most of us, we learned after doing a job we hated for years that we could also do something we enjoy doing.

You have to keep searching for work you love doing, even if you’re 50 years old. The next time you feel energized and strong and like the best version of yourself, pay attention to what you’re doing at that moment. Write it down. Do this for as long as it takes until a pattern emerges. Do this until you find what dramatists call a through-line: the essence of what you’re good at and what drives you.

This search for a work you love doing is not an age thing. There’s no cut-off. And once you find it, it’s unstoppable.

And you don’t have to quit a job you hate right this minute. You can start putting time, effort, and energy into a career you would like to pursue as if you’re sneaking out to meet a lover. I stole a few hours every late afternoon to take courses on teaching while I was selling products.

One year later, I was able to quit the job I hated and started teaching.

Given that you’re likely to spend more time deeply involved with work that energizes you instead of depleting you or making you want to stab your eyes out with your boss’s pen — the right career matters.

Imagine that.

To your Inspiration,

Banchi