Have you bagged your dream job?...Or are you on your way there?

I’m on my way. One step at a time.

I am on my way. It took me a while to orientate myself.

I kind of have it. I love being a nurse. It’s definitely my dream career. My current job though isn’t quite what I want it to be. I use to work in the hospital and I loved that. Then I moved because of my husband’s career. Now I work at a doctor’s office. It’s nothing like being in the hospital. I’m hoping once we move again, I’ll have a better chance at getting into a hospital.

I don’t even know what my dream job is, but right now Iam doing the Pre-IB – International Baccalaureate.

I did once before and hope to again.

I’m still a student, but I am on my way without much sacrifice or hindrances. I’m actually quite excited and optimistic. It’s not easy for everyone (especially when their dreams are, for lack of a better way of phrasing this, much bigger than my own), but it’s entirely possible to achieve your dreams.

I am – to the extent that I can’t imagine doing anything else, and haven’t since I first set foot in a classroom.

That’s not to say that my dream job is a perfect job by any stretch of the imagination – I still have a boss who doesn’t have a fucking clue about teaching!

I didn’t set out to find the job – I initially wanted to be a French teacher, but circumstances conspired to make that impossible. I found an “entry-level” (read: clueless neophyte) job teaching English in Japan, and eventually started acquiring appropriate qualifications two years later.

In non-English speaking countries and outside the EU – particularly Asia, there is a common perception that just being a native speaker of a language qualifies you to teach it. So no: entry to the profession is easy, but it doesn’t really become a profession until you start acquiring qualifications and experience. For many, it’s just a license to drink and fuck your way around whichever town/city you happen to find yourself in. One of my professional goals is to contribute to the true professionalisation of English language teaching in Japan.

I’m in the midst of finishing schooling for my dream job of pastry chef. Mind you, I won’t have the title of chef for a long time, but I can’t believe how much happier I am. I’m going to try to answer some of your questions…

When did I realize this is what I wanted to do? My current employer was going to merge with someone else and it looked like I was going to lose my job. I started looking at options based on what I like and what other schooling I have. It came down to pastry arts and forensic accounting. I decided that I should follow what I love to do, even though it was likely to be less money than following the money trails of bad guys.

Did you have a lot of studying and training to do? About 2 years of school, and I’m now in an externship that will take 200 hours. I should be done in December. What I love about the externship is that it is proving to me that I enjoy my chosen path. The last couple of weeks I’ve had to focus mostly on one product because the chef has a major order due on Thursday of this week. And yet, after many, many, individual mango mousse cakes, I’m still not tired of making them. I like the production aspect of the job and I especially like the opportunity to really learn a recipe.

Did you have to make big sacrifices? Eh, what’s a little sleep? Really though, I did have to take a pay cut because I went to part-time at my job. Luckily, my husband is well-employed, so my loss of income was pretty low impact. I had to give up four evenings a week at home at first, which was a little tough for me. I also had to give up my Tuesday night community choir.

Does it make you fulfilled as a person? I don’t know yet. I just know that I come home far happier on my externship days than my regular job days. I go home tired, but I still feel better inside than I imagined possible.

My “dream job” doesn’t really exist in the modern world. I want to be Indiana Jones + safari guide, basically

However, I’m halfway through a Bachelor’s in History, which will open the door to either law school or graduate school, depending on which is the best avenue to get me into the most adventurous private sector job I can find.

I found my dream job when I was just 23, but as it meant being self employed it took years to actually build up enough work to genuinely say it was truly funding me. Life took a turn that meant I had to leave it 4 years later. I’ve never been satisfied in a job since, which is such a shame. However, I’m moving back to doing that job all over again in October this year, and although it will take time to build up all the work again, I know I can do it, and it’s the only work that truly makes me happy.

Congratulations @harple! I have almost the identical history and hope before 50 to be able to resume.

Thank you @Neizvestnaya!

I have never had a ‘dream job’ so to speak, but I have a dream lifestyle, that has been working for me the past 5–6 years now.

My ultimate goal is to work 3–4 day weeks and have my hand in several different creative pots.

I work in a design, staging biz.with a friend, run a small store in my tourist zone about 10 days a month and dabble in writing.
My ultimate dream in terms of another creative outlet that pays.

I am of a free spirited and entrepreneurish persuasion and to be locked into a 9–5 scene is a fate worse than death for me. lol

I’m holding my own and will always choose time over money if at all possible. :-)

Getting closer…..

Oh my gosh yes, and I’m working my way up. I love being inspired to work everyday, new challenges, and working for Lush Limited

Yes I have. But it was by accident and I didn’t know it would be something I’d like until I was actually doing it. Lifes funny like that some times.

I’m what they call a late bloomer. Over the years I have been interested in a lot of different fields and occupations but none of them lasted long. I was confused about what I wanted to do for a lifetime and what would make me happy. Right now I have a ‘job’ working for special education for the Department of Education but I don’t like it. It’s just a paycheck. After evaluating my skills, what I like to do and what I’m good at, it occured to me that maybe one day I would be able to make money doing something I have liked doing since I was a kid. I love writing and reading. It’s one of the skills I have that even impress me. When my husband and father-in-law need a letter written for business, they always ask me to write it, My husband says I write like I should work for a newspaper (maybe he’s biased?) and when friends and co-workers read something I wrote they always compliment me on how great it reads. I’m not saying that I’m Zora Neale Hurston right now, but I really love to write and for me realizing what I want to do means I’m on my way. I’ve recently decided to enroll in some writing workshops and seminars to help me along and then volunteer some writing assignments and articles with some local periodicals to build up a little portfolio. This is all still new to me and I’m just learning what steps I need to take to have some success in this field. I would love any advice from anyone here also. I know this won’t be easy and I don’t plan on becoming a millionaire from writing but it would be fulfilling to be an artist in that area. I know that I would have to keep my job because writing won’t support me and my family but it’s my goal to one day be able to make money just from my writing and be my own boss.

I already had my “dream job” many years ago. It was in the US Army and I got two promotions and two bronze stars out of it.

I volunteered for the Army, for the training to learn how to do this job, and to go to Vietnam, and for the job itself. The training was kinda hard, but the job was worth it. I was in the job for about 15 months, had about 8 men in my command, and operated almost completely independently. I have never had a job I loved more.

I’m on my way to getting my dream job. :)

I want to be an accountant. Specifically, I want to be what my dad is right now, but it’s hard to explain.

Just three more years of college, an internship, studying abroad in London (soo excited!), staying a 5th year for an MBA, job-hunting and interviewing, and hopefully I will land myself in my dream job. :]

Accounting isn’t exactly a difficult career, so I don’t think I’ll have a lot of trouble.

I expected to doubt my major and switch (as countless adults told me I would because they said I’d get bored) but I just have this avid interest in accounting and I don’t know where it came from. I can’t wait to get in the classroom, look forward to every single assignment and test, and can’t keep a smile off my face when I talk about it. I’ve never been like this with other subjects before, so I really don’t see myself changing.

Technically, I already have my happiness. :) I just don’t have the job, yet.

@CherrySempai

SIC ‘em, girl! The world is YOUR oyster! : D

I was thrilled when I found out, at about the age of 30, that there was a profession just for people like me who loved words and writing, knew their grammar, and thought there was no such thing as a nit too small to pick. So in a sense finding work as an editor was a dream job for me right from the start. I began by freelancing my services to book publishers.

After a number of years as an independent who worked from job to job, I hired on as a full-time editor with a high-tech company and got paid a much better hourly rate than I ever made on my own. But that work tended to be dull and boring—juiceless technical stuff that rotted my brain. When it was time to move on, I suddenly landed over the rainbow—at a software company, editing educational materials for kids. Wow! I thought that was my dream job. And I also had great colleagues and a wonderful manager.

But good companies with great products and happy employees have a way of getting swallowed up by other organizations that just want to suck them dry and destroy their culture. I needed a lifeboat and landed a job at one of the biggest high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. More arid, repetitive, stultifying brain death, where the less use I made of my knowledge and skills, the better they liked it, but they paid me very well to stay there for ten years.

And then they offered to pay me well to retire. Irresistible. Free time on their dime: that sounded like a dream job.

That was a year ago, and I knew the largesse wouldn’t last forever. Since the beginning of this year, I have been freelancing again: a few hours a week, working for private clients, some of this and some of that—fiction! memoir! essay! interesting! fun! juicy! challenging and yet possible! clients who think I’m divinely inspired and who listen to my suggestions! What more could I want? I think this must be my dream job after all.

So many lovely stories here, thank you everyone! I suppose it doesn’t matter how much you plan something there is always the possibility that you will be derailed and it’s how you deal with that that seems to be important.

lol
I’m going to say…
Im on my way there.

think positive think positive !!