Work Your Money, Not Your Life

Part IIIOptimize Your Job

“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.”

– Peter Gibbons, Office Space

Now that you have a clear grasp of both your professional and financial situations, you're primed and ready to explore strategies for improving your job satisfaction.

The key to making the right career choices is self-knowledge. That's why this section starts by helping you picture your ideal role. You'll then build on the work you did in prior chapters to identify how your current and target roles may differ. Depending on the extent of the discrepancies and your financial needs, you can then determine which strategy or strategies would be most effective to help you find greater fulfillment in your career.

The remainder of this section will walk through three ways to improve your job situation, including by tweaking, supplementing, or replacing your current role. Job tweaks enable you to better align your current role with the career priorities you'll be identifying. Supplementing your job allows you to test how it feels to wear a different hat, while also helping fill the gaps that may exist between your current and ideal jobs. Switching jobs altogether is of course the most drastic (and in some cases, financially risky) approach of all, so we will be devoting two chapters to this ...