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As I mentioned last week, I’ve been offered and have accepted a paid writing position. (By the way, today is the final day of the Community Experiment. Any results to report? Email or comment to let me know!) I’m extremely excited about this opportunity, and I absolutely cannot wait until the administrative boxes have all been checked and I can get started with the actual writing. It feels so good to know that I’ll be getting paid to do something I love!

Even though getting paid to write has been a goal of mine for YEARS, I might not have been as excited about this opportunity if it had arisen a year ago. As a matter of fact, I might have walked away from it. Why on earth, you may rightly ask, would I have been anything less than thrilled about a paid writing opportunity? What possible reason would I have had for ignoring it or turning it down?
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Image from http://www.eteamz.com/fcrogue/images/goals.jpg.

There’s a ton of great literature out there on how to set goals. The SMART technique tells us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Other sources advise that goals should be phrased as positive statements (”I will eat healthy foods” vs. “I will quit eating junk food”), and pretty much everyone suggests that we write down our goals to formalize them. This is all great advice, but you could develop and write out the SMARTest goal imaginable and still be missing a very important step: choosing a goal that inspires passion.
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Last week’s Question of the Week addressed the idea of the “forever job”, by which I mean a job that is aligned with your purpose and is a perfect fit for you, now and always. When I answered the question, I noted that–while I’m not convinced that there’s a “forever job” out there for me–I do believe that I have a “forever purpose”, a single message that I’m here to express in this life. Put simply, my message is “You can do it!”–or more accurately, “WE can do it!” (After all, I want to help me too!)

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I’ve been keeping a handwritten journal as one of my 101 things, and I’ve discovered that sometimes I need a little prompt to get my writing juices flowing.

Image from http://www.infed.org/research/keeping_a_journal.htm

 It occurred to me that I might not be alone in that need, so from now on I’ll be posting a Question of the Week every Wednesday. You can use the question for personal journaling, as a blog post, or just to stimulate a little outside-the-box thinking.

Today’s question is Do you believe in the “forever job”? If so, do you know what yours is?

A little bit of background… A friend of mine who’s in the throes of her quarterlife crisis uses the term “forever job” to refer to the idea that there’s a career out there that’s aligned with her purpose, and that once she finds it, she’ll stick with it forever.

I don’t know that I believe in the “forever job” per se, but I do believe in a “forever purpose” and possibly a “forever career field”. For example, I’m 100% sure that writing is a key ingredient of my forever job. I might be writing novels, writing for magazines, writing personal development books, or writing on bathroom walls, but somehow, some way, writing is IT for me.

What do you think?

If you blog about this question, please let me know so I can check out your answer!

If you ask the experts (go ahead, consult the Interweb–I’ll wait), one of the keys to true happiness is to find something you’re passionate about and DO IT. The best case scenario would be to translate your passion into a career, but that doesn’t always work. Some people feel that turning a passion into a job might kill the magic, so to speak. Some people are passionate about something that isn’t easy to turn into a paid gig. For instance, I’m very passionate about running, but I’m fairly confident that no one’s going to pay me to do it. Regardless of whether your passion brings you a paycheck, you still need something in your life that lights your proverbial fire.

Image from http://www.canyon-news.com/artman2/uploads/1/fire_005.jpg

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