"I've been laid off from a job I never really liked. I'm 46 years old, and while I'm a little nervous about not having a paycheck, mostly I'm excited about having a chance to figure out what I really want to do with my life," Mary exclaimed.

Like many people, Mary expressed a deep desire to "find her calling." She longs to find a career that uses her gifts and gives her the opportunity to make a difference in some way. "Life's too short," she said, "to spend your time doing something that really doesn't matter."

Mary has worked for years as an administrative assistant, and doesn't have a clear picture of what she would like to be doing; she just knows that she wants to do something "more creative" that "helps people in some meaningful way." She estimates that she can afford to be out of work about three months before she needs a paycheck coming in again. So what should Mary do?

Finding One's Calling for the "Next Step" in Life

Since she needs a new job within a few months, Mary realized that she should start her job search as soon as possible, given the challenges of today's job market.  Her basic "game plan" is a good one: (1) find a job that's related to what she did before, but that has more of what she wants in a job; and then, (2) once she has a paycheck coming in, she'll spend time going through a more thorough career planning process to figure out what she really feels called to do long-term.

Mary gave herself a few days to figure out what type of work she would look for in her job search. She decided to work through the Career Master Planning stages in an abbreviated way:

Step 1: Assess Your God-Given Design:  Mary spent time identifying the transferable skills she thinks are her most marketable skills (that is, skills that are desirable to prospective employers). She also thought about what being "more creative" means to her, and what that might look like in the workplace. Lastly, she made a list of how she might help people that would be personally meaningful to her.

Step 2: Explore Career Options: Mary spent some time using the O*NET database and other online resources to research jobs that were similar to what she had done and that used her most marketable skills.

Step 3: Make Decisions: Based on her self-assessment work and her career research, Mary decided that a good "next step" job target would be a Meeting/Administrative Assistant for a non-profit organization, helping to plan and organize special events. Working with special events would satisfy her creative side, while being a part of a non-profit organization with a mission she cared about would give her more of a sense of meaning in her work.