What is Holding You Back?
Why Am I Not Doing What I Love?
If you are not working at the perfect job or running your dream business, do you know what is holding you back? Take this quiz and explore five common reasons most people are not doing what they love.
Start The Quiz
To do this online quiz, you will need to get out a notebook or journal and start about thinking about your life and the work you love.
Below are 5 questions to help get you started thinking. Read each one and then write down your thoughts, ideas and insights. Do them in order, so that you follow the train of discovery.
Reason #1 - Most people are not well prepared to choose from thousands of careers.
Question 1a: Do you know what career options are open to you? (If not, you can use career and job board links to get a feel for the thousands of jobs choices out there.)
Question 1b: Do you have a plan for how you will explore, evaluate and choose from among them?
Question 1c: Do you have the freedom to choose your own career? Or are your choices limited, and if so, by what?
Question 1d: Does your family or tribe have a trade or business? If yes, do you plan on practicing it?
Question 1e: Do you feel pressure to follow in the footsteps of someone else, or to choose a culturally supported career?
Question 1f: Do you have the tools and self-knowledge to prepare for choosing the best career or profession for you?
Reason #2 - Most people make career decisions before they have fully explored what they excel at.
Question 2a: Do you know what you excel at?
Question 2b: Have you fully explored all the options (jobs, careers and business ideas) for doing what you love?
Question 2c: If you have made jobs choices in the past, how have you done it? Was it by chance (seeing an ad, talking with friends, or knowing someone in the business) or by following a plan? If you have not yet chosen a job, how do you plan on making these life defining choices?
Reason #3 - Most people view work as a heavy burden instead of a labor of love, so they never look for work they can love.
Question 3a: When you think about the idea of work, what comes to mind?
Question 3b: Which best describes how you view the work you do (or will do in the future)? Is it ...
- hard labor with a 40 year sentence
- a necessary evil
- an unfortunate fact of life
- an acceptable way to earn money to pay for the things you need and want
- a chance to express your highest creativity
Reason #4 - Many who want to find work they love lack the resources and support they need to create their own career path.
Question 4a: Have you tried to find work you love?
Question 4b: If yes, how successful were you? Do you know what the work you love is? Do you know what you have to do to find it or create it?
Question 4c: If no, do you know what is holding you back?
Question 4d: Do you have everything you need to find your dream job or start your dream business? If not, what are you lacking?
Question 4e: Do you have everything you need (skills, training, knowledge, and experience) to do your dream job or run your dream business? If not, what are you lacking?
Reason #5 - Even if they find what they love to do, most have not figured out how to make a good living at it.
Question 5a: Do you know how to make a good living doing what you love? If so, can you put your plan into words?
Question 5b: Do you know what the top and bottom salary range is for your dream job? (If not, you can use salary links to find out.)
Question 5c: If you want to start and grow your dream business, do you have a clear idea of the things you need to do and what you have to invest to be successful?
Understanding Your Answers
These questions help you start seriously thinking about what is holding you back.
Right now, there are some very good reasons why you are not doing work you are thrilled to go to every morning. You have just taken the first step by finding out what is holding you back. Now you need to take the next step -- deciding what to do about them. So below we help you interpret your results and list links to pages and tools that you can use.
Question 1: Having the freedom to choose from thousands of professions can be intimidating. Especially if you do not have a good way to identify all the ones you can excel at, target your search and evaluate the best options. We recommend that instead of spending hours reading career profiles and job descriptions, you focus on finding the professions you excel at by describing your dream job or career. In Step 1 of our process, we share our recipe for your dream work.
Question 2: If you feel like you do not know what you excel at, or made career choices before you understood your options, you are not alone. You can learn more about excelling at what you do by reading about work you are naturally great at. If you want to find out what your gifts and talents are, you can use our Find Your Gifts & Talents guidebook.
Question 3: If you feel that work is more a burden than a great way to be paid doing what you love, then we recommend you read our article If You Have To Work, Why Not Do Work You Love? It may just change the way you think about work.
Question 4: It is rare that someone has all the things they need at the right time to make good career decisions. Finding your dream job or starting a dream business is not always easy. That is why our site exists - to help you gain access to the information and tools you need. You can start by exploring Step 1 or reading more of the hot topic articles that interest you.
Question 5: Knowing how to make a living doing what you love involves a series of steps from defining your dream work in detail to creating a feasible plan to create it. Our take up your life's work step by step process is designed to help you every step of the way. Start by reading about:
