4 Ways Your “Dream Job” is Costing You

Are you looking for your “dream job”? People often paint a picture in their mind of what their dream job looks like before they even start job searching. And it’s usually based on things like the prestige of a company or the salary or the job title. Well, I’m calling BS. In this post, I share the four ways your “dream job” is costing you.

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What is a “Dream Job?”

Let’s start with how people generally define dream job. This is based on what I’ve seen in terms of working with my clients – a lot of times, I’ve noticed that people define their “dream job” based on the company, the pay, prestige, and on the job title.

Let’s break those down.

The Company

What I’ve noticed is that when someone thinks of what their dream job looks like, generally, they are thinking of a job that maybe is in a company that has a “big” name.

Whether it’s Facebook or Google, just big names that are recognizable. Whatever it may be, having a company that is reputable on their resume tends to make them think, “Ooh, this will be a dream job because it’ll make me look good.“

The Pay

Next, sometimes the pay is how people define dream jobs. So, people think if they are making six figures or making money that can support their dream lifestyle, then that’s a dream job, right?

“If I make a certain amount of money that will allow me to buy the things and go on the trips and buy the meals etc., then that is my dream job.“

The Role

Another way that I’ve noticed people define a dream job is by the job title and prestige. And actually, those two go together.

With the job title, they might think – If I can get a director level job, the executive director, the associate director, the senior project manager, etc., these titles that when other people hear them, I sound like I’m in my bag and doing “big” things.

These titles that if other people hear them, they’ll think that “She has it together. She must be making the money and must be doing well. She has a lot of responsibilities!” That’s what a lot of people define as a dream job.

But, those aren’t the things that make a dream job.

Your Dream Job is a Myth

Your “dream job” does not exist and here’s why – let’s take for example looking for a dream man (this one is for the ladies reading this), but there’s no dream man, he’s a myth.

There are two people who are in a relationship and who are committed to when things get rough, working through it and working it out because they picked each other. Neither of them is a dream, they’re simply committed to the decision they made.

But the thing about marriage is that for most of us, our mindset is to work through it as long as it makes sense for both of us. So, you pick a partner and then expend considerable energy daily, working to keep the relationship healthy and alive.

But here’s the thing: you can’t take that mindset into your career because your career is not a marriage. Your career is a transactional relationship. So, this mindset of, “Oh, I’m looking for the dream man. And then when I find him, I’m gonna do everything. We’re gonna do everything we can to make it work!“

You can’t take that into your job because your job is transactional. You don’t want to enter a space where you are developing false loyalty and doing everything you can to make it work.

When you go into your job/career (and this is what I tell the women I work with), I want you to think of yourself as a lifetime consultant: you are taking the skills you have, the expertise you’ve developed, the knowledge you have and using it to help multiple companies over your career. And those companies compensate you fairly.

So, every time you go into a job, you are a consultant. For the time being, you have no loyalty to them and you’re going to want to avoid the “I am loyal to you to the end of time” mindset.

Why? Because they aren’t loyal to you. No matter how good your company is, no matter how much you love them, no matter how awesome they are, you love your co-workers, you have the benefits, it’s all butterflies and rainbows… Look, if you die today, they’ll replace you in two weeks.

If you had to leave for some reason, they will hire somebody else to do your job, but it’s just a business decision. Companies generally don’t stay loyal to individuals if it doesn’t advance the business as a whole. And so you as an individual are the CEO of your career. This means your job as the CEO is to always be looking for skills, opportunities, and knowledge that advance your career.

And if that happens to not be in the current company that you’re in, so be it.

With that in mind, if you go into the workplace, looking for this “dream job”, you are then also going in with the idea of how do I make this dream work? Because you think that if it’s what you dreamt of, it has to work. If it’s your dream, you can’t just let it go without working at it. As a result, it will cost you.

If you’re reading this and might be thinking, “Okay, if the dream job is a myth, then what’s real?“

To be honest, I’ve used the term “dream job” way back before because it’s what people resonate with; it’s what makes sense for people. And recently, I decided to not use it because regardless of what people resonate with, I’m all about finding a fulfilling career and what I know for a fact is that we can all enjoy multiple things.

If you have clarity, you can enjoy doing multiple things in your career. Like right now, my full-time job outside of Her Career Doctor is as a faculty member. I teach because my zone of genius is teaching. I can take those same skills and do learning and development for a company, maybe go to a school district and do curriculum development or consulting for them, or maybe even go to a career services center and be a director.

And I will be fulfilled in any of them because I’ve researched them and they align with my skills, values, and interests.

So, rather than having that ONE dream job, there are actually MULTIPLE fulfilling career options. As long as the work is aligned, you have the ability to enjoy doing multiple things.

Four Ways Your “Dream Job” is Costing You

So now that we have that out of the way and you know there’s no “dream job”, let’s talk about the four ways your dream job is costing you.

#1: Your dream job is costing you because you think you have to find a job you’ll enjoy forever.

This is for you if you’re currently actively job searching or you don’t like what you’re doing and are looking for your next career transition.

When you believe in the “dream job,” you believe that you must find something that you will enjoy forever.  And because you think that, attempting to determine which job is your “dream” will keep you feeling stuck due to the heavy weight of that decision. 

You think that you have to find the dream that you’ll enjoy for the next 5, 10, or 15 years. You believe that you have to make the right decision because if you make the wrong decision, everything’s gonna go horribly, terribly wrong.

But again, you’re thinking of your dream job the way we think of marriages. I think when we go into a marriage, we’re hoping that it will last for a lifetime. And we’re generally going into the mindset of “I’m gonna do what I can to make it work. As long as it’s not abusive, not unhealthy for my physical or mental health, we’re gonna do what we can to make it work and not give up too soon.”

This thought process just puts unnecessary weight on your decision-making because now, you want to decide on and find a job that you’ll enjoy for the rest of your life.

So, when you come across a job post, and you’re reading through the description thinking, “This looks pretty good”, but then before you know it, you start thinking, “Okay, but will I enjoy this in the next 10 years? Will, I still wanna do this five years from now?” You’re putting unnecessary weight on yourself and it’s keeping you stuck.

#2: Your dream job is costing you because you stay in bad situations and ignore red flags.

Your “dream job” can cause you to stay in bad situations because you’ll ignore red flags like bad management, ineffective communication practices, a bad physical environment, and toxic work culture. You’re ignoring these because this is your “dream job”, so you believe that it really can’t be that bad.

You’ll probably find yourself making excuses for the organization, or waiting for things to get better because this is your “dream”.

It has to be good.

I can’t just give up.

Maybe this is just a one-off.

Maybe we’re going through a rough season.

It’s going to get better if I just stick it out.

All of this simply because you thought this was going to be a “dream” and leaving feels like giving up on that dream.

And then every day, every moment, and every minute that you’re sticking it out, your physical and mental health is deteriorating, your relationships are suffering, your self-doubt is increasing, and your self-confidence is going down because you’re in a place that is not “feeding” you.

You might not want to hear it, but yes, your “dream job” can be that bad.

A lot of the women I worked with felt so stuck in a bad job situation because of their mindset of having the “dream job”. They’re frozen, like a deer in headlights, and can’t take any action. They have overthought the situation that led to them not doing anything. Their dream job was costing them by causing them to feel stuck and not make any decisions.

But here’s a side note for you: the only bad decision is to not make a decision. As long as you did your research and you made a decision with the information that was available to you at the time, then it wasn’t a bad decision… even if it had an unfortunate outcome.

Frequently, we conflate decision-making with outcomes. You can’t control the outcome of your decision, but you can control the decision that you make. As long as you have done sound research, did your due diligence, and made a decision based on the information that you had available to you, you can make a very quality decision and the outcome still be bad and that’s not on you.

#3: Your dream job is costing you because you close yourself off to potential opportunities.

When you’ve painted this robust picture of what your dream job looks like and you’re holding onto it for dear life, you have closed off your mind, brain, and sight, to other opportunities. You are no longer available to see what is available or what might come your way.

You’ve become unavailable to see other job opportunities that might be fulfilling for you because you have this one dream job that you’re looking for.

You’re out there thinking that if a job doesn’t hit your checklist word for word, then it cannot possibly be the right job for you. As a result, you’ll ignore opportunities. You won’t read job descriptions, nor talk to a recruiter because that isn’t part of what your dream job looks like.

Here’s the problem with that: as I’ve mentioned earlier, we all have multiple careers that we can really be fulfilled because we’re very multifaceted and diverse. Because you’re multifaceted, you can be fulfilled in multiple careers. And when you’ve closed up your mind to opportunities, sometimes you miss out on really good opportunities because you aren’t checking for them.

Your dream job is costing you by causing you to miss out on other careers or job opportunities that would’ve been equally as fulfilling, that would’ve paid you equally well and that you would’ve truly enjoyed.

Let me tell you a story of one of my clients who was job searching. I remember when we started working together, she had a very specific role that she was looking for. We sat down and painted a picture of who she is as a person and what roles would fit her. We came up with a few job titles that she would focus on.

And then she started interviewing with multiple companies – and none of them was the initial job title she came in wanting. But were they still jobs that she was truly excited about? Heck yes! The reason is that they aligned with who she was and we were able to process through how those jobs were a fit and align with her goals. Again, CEO of your career = making goal-based decisions.

If she had stayed tied to that initial title that she came in with, she would’ve missed those opportunities. And mind you, all three of the opportunities she interviewed with were paying significantly more than what we had initially talked about because of the roles she wanted initially.

By now, I hope you understand that when you close your mind off to opportunities, you miss out on opportunities.

#4: Your dream job is costing you because you quit a good thing too soon because it feels like “work”.

A very common line of thinking I encounter is: “This couldn’t possibly be my dream job. Why is this so hard? This could not be fulfilling work. Why does it feel like I’m actually working?” They told me to do something I love. And I’ll never work a day in your life!“

This is what it sounds like when your job or career starts to feel like

But, they were lying to you. Your fulfilling career doesn’t mean it will never feel like work. I’m saying this from my Christian perspective – God created us to work. We were created to work with our hands and God blesses us. When we work, our career/work is how we build wealth to be a blessing to other people.

The mark of a fulfilling career is not that it will never feel like work. It’s that even when it feels like work, you still enjoy it and are still thriving in it. That’s the mark of a fulfilling career because what happens is when you’re doing fulfilling work, it’s aligned with who you are. It’s aligned with your interest, skills, and values.

When you are in those moments that it starts to feel like work and you find yourself saying “I have to learn a new skill, I have to learn a new way of doing things,” because the topic, the industry, or the concept is interesting to you, it means that even if you’re feeling like it’s work, it still feels good because you’re still curious about it. You still genuinely want to be engaged.

Additionally, when you’ve developed a new skill or accomplished something, you feel really good about yourself. So as you are working on the job, it’s pouring back into you. That’s a fulfilling career.

Let me use myself as an example. My full-time job is as a faculty member and I train counselors. A big part of my work is doing research. And before my Ph.D., I had a really great statistics teacher that made me start to enjoy quantitative research even though I wasn’t good with math.

But, that doesn’t mean that I love to research. I’m good at it and can do it, but I don’t love it.

When it comes time to do data analyses for my research, I’m out here doing all the YouTubing, Googling, just trying to find the answers because it’s like, Jesus, what am I supposed to be doing here? Help me!

I’m not kidding. I literally pause and I pray. I’m like, “God, I need your help right now. Cause this doesn’t make sense. It’s not working“, and God will come through.

And so during those research, my job feels like work. When I’m researching, or when I’m grading papers that I assign to my students, it feels like work.

However, when the analysis works out, I can write this manuscript, then it gets published and I know it’ll make a difference, I feel good, because I was analyzing data that had to do with topics that I was interested in.

And then when I read and grade my students’ papers and I’m seeing how my students are changing and how they’re thinking critically, I feel good about the work I’m doing. It’s all fulfilling.

So, it’s not like it doesn’t feel like work. It’s that even in the moments when it feels like work, I’m still growing. I’m still developing. And I still feel good about myself and what I’m learning.

Now, when you have this picture in your mind of what a dream job is and you think because it’s a dream it should be easy, then the moment it feels like work, you quit on it. You quit on it because in your head if it’s a dream, it must always be easy, right? Wrong. That’s not how it works.

The next time someone tells you to find what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, call BS because you can love what you do and it can still feel like work.

Let’s not make the word “work” synonymous with dissatisfaction or enjoyment. Work is putting effort into something.

The things that matter in life don’t come easy to us. We work at them, including your fulfilling career. You have to work at it. If you have goals to do better in your career, you have to work at them. Work to develop your skills, work to learn new knowledge, and work to improve and become better.

So, when it feels like work, stop running away from it. Instead, put effort into it if you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing, not because you’re trying to stick out a bad situation.

If you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing, working at it is rewarding. But hey, work doesn’t always feel good. But if it’s aligned work, it’s always rewarding.

There you have it, the four ways your “dream job” is costing you. Did any of those resonate with you? Drop a comment and let’s talk!