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An interesting article in the NY Times by business coach, Pamela Slim addresses this very question:

For a long time, I thought it was totally normal to hear people's deepest creative urges within five minutes of meeting them.

Returning from picking up a prescription at a local grocery store, I told my husband that our new pharmacist longed to be a poet.

"How in the world do you find these things out?" he asked.

"I don't know; I just sense they have a story to tell."

This interest in what makes people tick, and curiosity about what keeps them from realizing their dreams, drove me to become a business coach 13 years ago. I never tire of hearing people's stories, or of learning ways to help the creatively oppressed come alive.

Thus starts Pamela's introduction on how to find out what you really want to do:

So why do so many of us perceive ourselves as being so terribly misaligned with our right work? Upbringing can have something to do with it. A client once confessed: "My father told me I had three career options. I could be a doctor, an engineer or a failure."

I imagine that when the Grammy-winning singer John Legend broke the news that he wanted to quit his job as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group to pursue music full time, some of his relatives were concerned about his career stability.

Obviously, he made the right choice. Many stories don't turn out that way.

So, if you're unhappy with your job or looking for a fresh way of life, check out what Pamela has to say and get crackin'! Life is too short to be stuck in a crappy job or way of life that you despise:

The good news is that there are many ways to deal with our creative aspirations, as I learned from Anne Nelson, whom I met a month ago at Saguaro Lake Ranch, a rustic resort outside Phoenix. Ms. Nelson left a successful career as a pharmaceutical sales representative when, she said, she realized that her job selling animal antibiotics conflicted with her values. She started down a path of "self-accuratizing," her term for finding a career that would make her happy.

Her first stop was a decorative wall-finishing business, a nod to her study of art in college. Three years later, after spending three days on top of a scaffolding painting a living room, she realized that she didn't want to be doing that when she was 55, and she quit the business.

She spent time in Mexico, "learning through simple, conscious living, what joy really feels like." She took up ballroom dancing. She completed an M.B.A. in sustainability. Now she uses visual mapping to help businesses with their conceptual planning; the work combines her interests and experience in art, business and using her hands.

"Some people may call me flaky, but I don't really care. I have never been happier," she said. "If a situation does not work for me anymore, I leave. My energy is high, I wake up with joy, and I feel alive."

Bottom line: if you're going to live with uncertainty in your life during this economic crash, you might as well be doing something worthwhile and interesting, right?

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