Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Coping with an unchallenging job?

If it's possible, I think also getting more education is always a good thing. (I'm a doctor and I find one bonus to having that extra degree plus training is the flexibility).

But don't get a law degree.

That will actually make things worse.

I'm surprised no one has suggested starting your own business. My uncle is gifted (160 IQ) and had difficulty keeping a job. He started his own business and discovered being his own boss was right for him.

Getting a "job" to take care of the bills doesn't mean it's going to define your life's work. Whatever it takes to pay the bills until you wrap your head around what you do want to do with your time and talent may be enough to keep you sane while you do mindless work. In other words, the job is just temporary while you work toward your goal.

A book to help you decide what to do: 48 Days To The Work You Love

and the revised edition: 48 Days To The Work You Love: Preparing For The New Normal

You are young. You know very little about the industry and work you are doing. Everyone has to pay their dues in order to develop emotional maturity. Just grunt it out. Life is 90% showing up and 10% careful planning.

In the meantime I would take stock of what is out there while beginning to network. Read the top 10 books on your field and read all the journals you can. Read blogs on your field. Read biographies. Then plot your strategy to get where you want.

There are really three kinds of work:

1. Repetitive.
2. Directed by someone else but open ended.
3. Self-planned and directed.

Work then is valued in terms of:

1. Adds only marginally to the bottom line.
2. Leverages an income stream.
3. Whole new source of revenue.

You can leverage yourself by:

1. No one else
2. A handful of direct reports
3. Building entire teams and training them

And finally:

1. The tide is coming in ( economy failing )
2. Tide going out (economy booming)
3. Boat is leaving ( your field is in high demand )
4. You have a nice boat ( your sector is taking off )

There are very few positions where you can be self-directed and can work through others in a time of expansion. But that is really the nice place to be. That's where I am at.

You have to go through a lot to get to those places. Even then there is a lot of BS. A lot of it. And its boring to get through. You have to put forth maximum effort even though it is sheer drudgery sometimes.

And once you get there there is still BS and drudgery.

I refer my clients to their congressman all the time to check on the status of their Social Security disability application.

Although I know they're not "lost in the system", it's just going to take them a year to get their hearing.

I suppose "Social Security Disability representative" is always an available job. I think you have to take a test to be able to rep people before the SSA.

Ok, Why don't more of you start your own business? We are all intelligent adults... yet we are extremely unhappy with boring jobs that take up a huge chunk of the time we have every day.

I thought I wasn't interested in starting one. It sounded boring to me, at first. Then I realized I could decide what I wanted to do and then create a job for myself.

I'm sure most of us are smart, creative, and fully capable of finding a way to make money without settling for a miserable job working for someone else.

Wow, that is a very positive outlook! You do have to be careful about getting the job done too quickly, though. You have to look busy while you are at work. It is even worse if they pay you an hourly wage and they send you home when you finish.

Doing the job quickly works well when you are paid on commission or on contingency fee.

Very true.

I did!!

Best decision I ever made. There is just no substitute for autonomy as far as diminishing stress, as far as I'm concerned. In addition, there is no way I would have had the flexibility to homeschool my son and get him all the therapies he needed if I was working on someone else's schedule. There have been financial trade-offs, but they have been worth it.