Page 135 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

STEP 5: IDENTIFY YOUR PASSIONS AND VALUES 123

be living the best possible life you can right now (the passions
and values work). One of the easiest ways to figure out what you
secretly want so badly that you can taste it is to examine your
envy.

The Envy Method

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, but I actually find it a useful
tool for discovering people’s deeper desires, dreams, and values.
As a matter of fact, it is such a good method that if I had only five
minutes to coach you to find the ideal career, I would simply ask
you to name someone you envy and explain why. Envy precisely
reveals what you secretly wish you could have or be. What you
envy in others is what you want for yourself but, for some perverse
reason, don’t think you can have. Whose
career do you envy? Is the source of your
envy something the person has, is it a Regret for the things
certain quality or characteristic, or is it we did can be tempered
a particular achievement? In what ways by time; it is regret for
do you want to be like this person, have the things we did not
what this person has, or do what he or do that is inconsolable.
she is doing? How you respond to these
questions is an excellent indication of —SYDNEY J. HARRIS
your own passions and values. If you are
in awe of what somebody else possesses
or has achieved in his or her walk of life, then this is what you
want for yourself. If you thought you could have it, you wouldn’t
be feeling envious; you’d be feeling inspired to change your career
path and try something new.
I was working with a client to help her figure out what she
wanted to do with her career. She had been an extremely success-
ful commercial real-estate developer in the United States until she
married and moved abroad and was left at loose ends. She con-
sidered doing real estate again but felt she had already been there