Do you look forward to going to work every day or do you have to drag yourself out of bed and feel like you’d rather face a firing squad than face another Monday morning at your job. Is it possible to feel good about what you do and look forward to going to work? Thankfully, the answer is yes if you are doing something you really enjoy.

Most people make a career choice based on chance or circumstance. They either follow in their parent’s footsteps, even if they have no interest in the job or they grab the first opportunity that comes along. In past generations, a job was something you did for a living and enjoying it was not a primary consideration. However, today we want to enjoy what we do. Since we spend about 80% of our waking life at work, if we don’t like our jobs we are condemning ourselves to a life of discontent.

The good news is that longevity on a job is no longer a primary consideration. In the past having 4 or 5 different jobs on your résumé was considered job hopping, today it is the norm. The average person will have at least 10 different jobs in their working career and even 2 to 3 complete career changes. Deciding on a career is no longer a lifelong choice. In fact, if a person stays in one job too long, employers may see them as being stagnant and unmotivated. So if you find yourself dreading Monday mornings and daydreaming about retirement, it may be time to take a good hard look at other options.

How do you go about making a career change? I recently spoke with a client who had spent the last 20 years in clerical positions and while she was effective in these positions, she felt that something was missing. However, because of her experience, she thought she had to look for another office job. As we talked she mentioned that her husband had recently passed away after three years of being seriously ill. As she mentioned coordinating his care, dealing with doctors and hospitals and ensuring he received the treatment he needed, she became very animated. She commented “I was so thorough that his doctor asked me to provide the same services for another terminally ill patient who had no one to coordinate her care.” I commented on her excitement and suggested she find a job in the social services field, maybe even case management of the terminally ill. She stated, “I can’t do that because I don’t have a degree.” I assured her that for every job that requires a degree, there are a number of support positions in that field that do not.

As we continued our discussion, I found that she had also acted as the Human Resources Manager for her husband’s landscaping business, volunteered for meals on wheels and worked with several community agencies, coordinating charity events. I suggested we update her résumé to reflect these experiences so that she could get a job based on these skills. She stated, “But I was not paid for those things, how can I put them on my résumé?” I assured her that even if she did not get paid, she still had those skills and experiences and the only way an employer will know that is if she tells them. I explained that a résumé is a summary of a person’s experiences and lets a potential employer know what a person’s capabilities are. With her current résumé, she would not even be considered for a social services position as it did not show that she had any experience in that area. But adding her volunteer experiences to her clerical skills would make her an ideal candidate in the social work field.

When putting together your résumé, examine all of your life experiences to discover the skills you have acquired over a lifetime of living. Do you enjoy children? What can be more valuable than the day-to-day experience of being a parent? Do you organize the annual charity event at your church? Put it on your résumé. You need to put it into terms so that an employer can recognize the valuable skills you have developed through these activities and be ready to explain further in the interview how these experiences will benefit them.

Point out your organizational skills, your creativity, and your ability to work under pressure. Employers today understand that they will need to provide some training on the job and they want people who are enthusiastic about learning what is required for their particular job. What better way to show that you enjoy something than that you spend your spare time doing it?

Another way to improve job satisfaction, if you are in a job you hate, is to assess the tasks you are responsible for. Define the tasks you enjoy most and use those skills to find a job that requires more of those activities and less of the ones you don’t like. You have nothing to lose but a job you detest and everything to gain including increased energy, motivation and a better quality of life. Liking what you do is essential to your job success as well as your overall satisfaction with your life.