How to Find Your Dream Job

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Cultivate calm and acceptance
I know it sounds wacky—I mean, you're trying to get out of that hellhole, right? But it's worth a try for several reasons. First of all, a calm-as-possible approach to your less-than-perfect job, with an eye toward being of service to your colleagues, may change your mind about leaving in the first place. Not bloody likely? OK, then, it will minimize stress and conserve precious energy while you look for the next gig. Most important, it may actually make it likelier that you'll really leave, especially if you've developed family-style grudges against your bosses or co-workers. Deep resentment can hook you in a nasty, interminable replay of family issues that has a bizarre staying power and can actually magnetize you to your seat.

Convene a Wise Persons Group
That's my pet name for a committee of friends who agree to help you find job happiness. Pick a manageable but ample number of folks (five to 10) who know you, love you, and won't bullshit you. Include both genders and as many different personal styles and points of view as you can. (Don't invite family members; they're too likely to counsel caution and make you self-conscious.) Invite them for coffee or dinner and leave enough time for a good talk. Make your problems, desires, and values clear to them, and ask for their frank assessment of where you are and where you might go next. Not only will you get a stunning amount of support and hear ideas you could never have come up with in a million years, but you'll probably learn about aptitudes and advantages that you've been hiding from yourself but are obvious to people who care about you.

Interview interesting people
This one is so simple it hurts. Seek out people who are doing what you want to do and talk to them. Ask them how they got where they are, how they spend the day, what they like and don't like about what they do. Your image of that dream job will get sharper, you'll make allies for the quest, and the idea that you really can have what you want will brighten and solidify in your brain.

Job hunt with everyone 
Your helper network potentially includes everybody with whom you come in contact. Make yourself alert for, and receptive to, help from odd corners and unlikely people. Share your quest with the friendly coffee jockey you chat up at your local cafe—she may be a potter or photographer or dancer who can hook you up with the art scene you're dying to enter. A conversation on the bus could lead you to a business venture you've never heard of.

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