So here’s the thing.
I’m a big believer in big dreams—dreams that feel so out-there and completely unattainable from where you’re standing right now.
What I don’t believe in?
Dream jobs.
And this is funny coming from someone who actually worked at her dream job.
When I was in high school, I was obsessed with American magazines. I loved how they put words and images together. I loved the punny headlines, the fashion editorials and the tips on plucking your eyebrows, talking with your crush, dealing with classmates who gossip about you behind your back. Magazines, at that time, were so expensive that my family couldn’t afford them. When I would sleep over at my friends’ houses, that’s when I would devour their copies of Seventeen and Vogue.
When I was 23, the most magical thing happened. I was hired to launch and become the Associate Publisher of the Philippine edition of Good Housekeeping—even if I wasn’t a mom or married!
When I was 25, my boss sent me to New York where I pitched for—and won!—the license to publish the local edition of Seventeen magazine. It was unbelievable as my boss sent me to do this on my own. Picture a young Asian girl in a huge conference room in Manhattan, making a presentation about why they should award their first international edition to us.
As part of the preparations for the first issue, the launch editor and I had to go back to the US for training. We met the editor-in-chief of Seventeen. We had cocktails with the team at Balthazar’s (it was peak Sex and the City!). We were even invited to join a cover shoot with Christina Aguilera. (Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet her but we did get to wave at her in between set changes—and she waved back!)
It was truly a dream come true. (My 13-year-old self who would borrow her classmate’s magazines wouldn’t have been able to believe it. From where she stood, this was so out-there and unattainable.) Even as I write it, I’m amazed how it all happened.
The flip side of my dream job was how much I associated my worth and value with my performance and achievement. I was relentless in my pursuit of targets. When my boss commented that I was driving my team too hard, I told her that I don’t push them harder than I pushed myself. As you can probably imagine, I was not very popular. Respected, I hoped, maybe even feared, but not liked very much.
I had become the boss and person that I never wanted to be. And I lost that wide-eyed thrill and joy of launching magazines and books.
I believe I created the Good Job Journal for my 30-year-old self. If I had had these prompts and questions, I would have designed a job that was more aligned with my strengths and values. My boss would probably have pushed back but I know that she is a reasonable woman so we would probably have been able to come up with a compromise that worked. But I didn’t know myself well enough so I kept saying yes and couldn’t articulate why I wanted to say no—so I didn’t.
There were a lot of reasons why I left that dream job. But the main one still holds true: After 16 years, I had achieved what I wanted and it was time for new adventures.
From that experience, this is why Good Job is not called Dream Job…because I cannot promise you the dream…because the dream has its flip side especially when you cannot separate your value and worth as a person from your job…because I had expected my job (as it was my dream) to be my source of meaning and fulfillment and that was an unfair expectation for it…and because sometimes good is good enough.
And I am good with that.
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Whether you are working at your dream job or not, whether you want to find your dream job or not, I invite you to write in your Good Job journal.
You will be prompted to think about your values and how you’re being valued. You will be tracking your moods and noticing your triggers. You will be pondering questions on the meaning of success and the impact you want to make in the word. You will look at your current situation but also take the long view.
These are all questions worth answering, not just in your job but for your life.
