20 Steps to the Perfect Job and Life

Present by

Akilan Sridharan

Original article by Craig Nathanson, "The Vocational Coach"

1. Find a purpose for your life

• Otherwise you will end up with someone else's dream life

2. Figure out what bothers you most about the world and do something

about it

3. Determine what is most important to you

• Most of us live our lives around what others tell us is most important

4. Align your new goals around what is most important

• These will become the roadmap for your life's direction

5. Have a healthy perspective of yourself

• When you feel good about yourself, everything else just seems to fall into place

6. Replace old beliefs that are no longer useful to you

• start believing you are just as smart as anybody else

7. Create new possibilities for your life

8. Figure out who you want to be when you grow up

• It's never too late to start redefining your life and your sense of self

9. Practice living the life you want now

• You won't believe it's possible until you actually do something

10. Figure out what you are passionate about

11. Align your abilities and your interests

• This is the quickest path to vocational passion

12. What would a perfect vocational day be for you?

• (For example, my perfect vocational day includes writing this article for you!)

13. Write your autobiography five years from today

• When you write down the life you want to live and read it, magical things happen to close the gap

14. Downscale your lifestyle now to create the opportunities that you seek

15. Strengthen your relationships and support systems

• you must shed the people in your life who do not share your dreams and nurture relationships with new people who are excited about your journey

16. Grow strong emotionally

• You must learn to ignore the opinions of others-even those who love you-if they don't mesh with your dream

16. Give yourself permission to follow your heart

• Tell yourself it's OK to be selfish. It's your life!

18. Laugh a lot and enjoy the ride

19. Live with integrity as a path towards an authentic life

• Define what integrity means to you and then follow your own rules

20. Eat well, exercise and get plenty of sleep

• This will give you that extra bounce in your step