Want To Find The Work You Love?

Do you have a vocation, career, or a job? Is your life's work a passion or a paycheck? Executive coach Dan Miller says that as many as 70 percent of white collar workers are unhappy in their jobs and yet are spending more and more time at work.

Miller offers life-changing ideas in his new book, "48 Days To The Work You Love," and will drop by The Saturday Early Show to discuss them.

The book isn't about finding a new job. It's about finding out who you are and how to find the work that will allow you to grow.

What's the significance of 48 days? Miller says, "If you're in a position where you are restless and frustrated, 48 days is a reasonable amount of time to make a change. It's a reasonable amount of time to say 'Where am I?,' to get advice and the opinions of others, and to identify reasonable alternatives and to choose the best one and act on it."

Read the excerpt from the first chapter:

"48 Days to the Work You Love" outlines a new process of looking at what you are going to be when you grow up. How has God uniquely gifted you in (1) skills and abilities, (2) personality traits, and (3) values, dreams, and passions? From these areas we can see clear patterns from which to make career and job decisions. These patterns create a compass, providing a sense of continuity in the midst of inevitable job changes and workplace unpredictability. Looking inward is 85 percent of the process of finding proper direction; 15 percent is the application to career choices.
Work is not a curse of God but one of the benefits of walking in His will. Finding the work you love is not a self-serving goal; it is a required component of fulfilling our true calling.

You may be asking, why 48 Days? Well, the Bible is quite clear that God considers 40 days to be a spiritually significant time period. In fact, in the Bible, any time God wanted to prepare people for something better, He took 40 days:

• Noah's life and the world were transformed by 40 days of rain.
  
• Moses was a different man after spending 40 days on Mount Sinai.

• The Israelite spies scouted the Promised Land for 40 days.

• Elijah ran more than 200 miles in 40 days on one meal to get to a place where he could hear from God again.

• Goliath spent 40 days challenging the Israelite army while God prepared David to confront him.

• The people of Nineveh were transformed in 40 days after God's challenge to change their ways.

• Jesus was empowered for ministry by spending 40 days in the desert.

• The disciples were transformed by spending 40 days with Jesus after the Resurrection.
• There are 40 days (not counting Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

I'm giving you 8 free days in the process to create your own plan. Take a break on Sundays and a couple of Saturdays. Don't knock yourself out; just stay committed to this time frame to avoid the usual procrastination.

The next 48 days can transform your life. Take time to look at how you are uniquely gifted, identify your strongest characteristics, consider the options, choose the best path for meaningful and fulfilling work, create a plan of action, and act.

Believing that God created me for His purposes and scheduled every day of my life, I commit the next 48 days to a new clarity and a plan of action for moving into God's calling for me.