Name your deepest yearnings and aspirations for your career.

The first time I walked into a classroom, I was immediately smitten. It felt so natural and right. Teaching drew me in and left me wanting for more. Soon, I started daydreaming about going back to the classroom again and interacting with my students. I prepared lectures during my lunch breaks. I was obsessed. Teaching – even over Zoom, where the connection can be faulty in more ways than one – is both a constant joy and a challenge. I love researching, learning, and preparing course materials. No one has to dangle a fat salary in front of me to compel me to go the extra mile. To reshape the lessons I’ve learned (and am still learning) in the hopes that they’ll be useful for my students as they’ve been for me is something that gives me joy. Even when my students demand most of my time from me, I still enjoy teaching.

Too many people who seek the right career begin (and quite often continue) 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 they shun their natural inclination because it won’t pay off.

Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do.

And…

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

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.

Ever since I graduated from college, I have always been obsessed with filling my CV with accomplishments. When I learned to speak French, I added my language skill in my CV. When I took a course on communication skills, I added my new skill in my CV. I’ve also been obsessed with my “to-do” list for every job I had and for every task I needed to do.

I’ve learned I need another much important list – a ‘To-Feel’ list for my career path.

Emotions are a form of intelligence and if you leave them out, you will leave a part of you out. If you refrain from putting your heart into your work, what’s the point?

My ‘To-Feel’ list for my career path includes:

. Something I enjoy

. Something I admire

. Very satisfied with the quality of time I spend on my job

. Loving my job

. Passionate about my job

. Proud of my job

. Hopeful about my job

. Fulfillment in my job

Sometimes listening to our feelings is often as much a choice as it is an obligation.

Ever since I made a ‘To-Feel’ list, I’ve had to decide many decisions based on it. Some of those decisions might not make your family happy. But that’s the thing about creating a ‘To-Feel’ list for your career path. When you start honoring your list, you may go against what someone who loves you wants for you but that you don’t want for yourself. You may disappoint the person you least want to disappoint in the name of honoring what you really want to do. You might not see the benefits the moment you make a decision based on your list. But you will. Maybe not immediately. Maybe after a roller-coaster of emotions. Maybe in the most unexpected way imaginable. But your decisions always turn out for the best.

Ever since my ‘To-Feel’ list guided me to a career path I love pursuing, I’m a happier woman. It’s the reason that to this day, if anyone asks me for career advice, I advise them to make a ‘To-Feel’ list for their careers. To plunge into deep explorative dive into their feelings.

If you want to be happy, you have to do something you not only enjoy but admire. You have to be able to say about your career, I have a pretty cool career.

Like my best friend always tells me she has the coolest job in the world.

My friend makes the tastiest dishes I’ve ever tasted in my life. The secret is in the eggs. She raises chickens in her backyard. My friend doesn’t just feed them and keep them safe: she sings to them, tells them stories at night to help them sleep, and keeps a close tab on the health and mood of each and every one of them. Something of that care and love is transmitted into the egg. The result is an explosion of flavor, a rich creaminess, a shiver of pleasure down the spine as soon as that fiery-orange yolk hits your palate.

My friend is not working to be nominated as the #1 chef in the world on Guinness book of records. Nor is she busy trying to be famous or obliterate competitions or make millions of money in her bank account. In fact, only a handful of people know about her. But she does what she does – however, humble her job maybe – with such love, devotion, and dedication, that she is making human lives more wonderful, one egg at a time.

That’s what I feel about my teaching career. In classrooms and speaking platforms, I feel like I have found work that lets me feel like I am walking through an open door instead of banging my head against a wall.

Emotions are a form of intelligence and if you leave them out, you will leave a part of you out. If you refrain from putting your heart into your work, what’s the point? In 9 years of teaching and delivering courses to thousands of clients, I’ve learned work could literally be fun – fun like playing.

It took me years to grasp that.

I remember Bill Gates once saying, “Paul and I, we never thought that we would make much money out of the thing. We just loved writing software.” The way you feel about your work matters… so that you can spend more time deeply, truly involved with work that energizes you instead of depleting you or makes you want to stab your eyes out with your boss’s pen.

This is the best piece of career advice I’ve ever received: name your deepest yearnings and aspirations for your career. Take a moment to reflect on each item on your list. To study your own feeling compass, teasing out the nuances of what each list contains with more depth and specificity. Plunge into deep explorative dive into every item on your list.

Write your list as a row or column, or lay them out in a fluffy brainstorming cloud. Feel free to use colors and get creative. Are your priorities, habits, and rituals of your career serving these feelings? What steps can you take to honor the items on your “to-feel” list?

To your inspiration,

Banchi