Starting From 0: How To Align Who You Are With What You Do For Work (Premium Edition)
THE EXACT SHIFTS I MADE & STEPS I TOOK
If you’ve opened this, chances are you want to align who you are with what you do for work.
And I get why you want this.
Because the other is the reason why so many of us have a horrible relationship with work. It means self-abandonment and leads to burnout.
Which is why I wanted the same. And so do many of my readers.
The question of how to do work that really fits me has been the greatest enigma of my life. I tried countless approaches and experienced some really hard lows. But eventually, I turned these lows into a series of transformations and became obsessed with using these authentic pursuits as a personal development tool.
Initially, my goal was to solve this for myself so I could turn my life around. But as I developed and my life started shifting, I felt a compulsion to speak from this place, and found myself sharing what I’ve learned and the steps I took (and still use) with others who want the same and face the same challenges.
What follows is a blend of practical guidance and emotional alignment that will help you:
Stop overthinking your first move
Release your authentic voice and work without self-censorship
Move from endless learning and sporadic creation to consistent creating
Create work that resonates twice - offer what people value while staying true to yourself
Discover where your personal meaning intersects with what others seek
The goal is to end compromising your authenticity to please others because you don’t know how to create value by being authentic. It’s to eliminate the painful choice between doing what’s true to you and what others value and pay for, that traps us in misaligned jobs that burn us out.
When you find that intersection where people appreciate exactly what's yours to create/do, you can finally build work that serves both your soul and other people.
Why We Need This Approach
Think about how most of us built our first careers.
When we were deciding which way we’ll go professionally, we looked at who needed our degrees, credentials, and skills, while promising the highest pay in return for our time → then did what we could to fit those requirements.
And we didn’t do it just once to pass an interview.
Once we were hired, we continued to pursue whatever was necessary to grow into a more responsible role and a bigger pay.
And where did that approach lead us?
Nice salaries, impressive job titles, security, and enough money for life’s comforts and pleasures. It might seem like we have it all… except we feel that we don’t. Because this path also led to a profound misalignment that burns us out on a soul level.
This misalignment hurts us because:
Being and doing what’s not natural for us takes more energy than it gives back.
Performing as someone we’re not (to be valued) creates painful inauthenticity (we know we’re not truly valued).
Suppressing our true expression deprives us of the feeling of truly living.
Over time, we learn this way of working simply isn't sustainable.
And this is something that no amount of pay and comforts can offset.
Which is why the answer to “What’s next?” isn’t the next step on a career ladder, a different job, or even starting something on your own. If it’s created in the same way, it will lead to the same result.
So what is next?
Well, we know we must change our approach. And we may even recognize that authenticity is key.
But this kind of “career change” comes with its own challenges.
After years of working in the ‘old’ way, when we try to do something different, we discover that:
We are drawn to authenticity, but we struggle to be authentic ourselves
We don’t know what our authentic offering even is
We can’t see the value we might create through authentic work
We know how to offer what others want, but not what we want, in a way that others will value
We can confidently sell ourselves to corporations for $$$, but we are too insecure to offer our ebook for 0.0$…
We've created a disconnect between who we are and what we do because we became what others wanted before discovering how our authentic selves could create value that people want. Now we shrink when we’re meant to do and serve what we genuinely want to do and serve.
This is how many people have interests, feel strongly about certain causes, or feel drawn to write, create, or contribute something that no one told them to, but they don’t know what to make of it. They have interests, knowledge, skills, and creativity to create value, but they don’t see it.
So it stays a hobby. Not because it cannot be more, not because they don’t want it to be more, but because they don’t see how it can be more.
The good news?
Just as we spent years learning to be successful in one way, we can learn to be successful in another way.
We can use the stability our previous approach has given us while gradually, at our own pace, exploring what's truly next. Starting with what we initially skipped as step one: being who we are, expressing ourselves authentically, and letting our work reveal itself.
If you’re ready to do it, let’s go.
If you’re not a Premium Member yet and wonder what you’ll get by upgrading, check out this post.