Why is it important to have a meaningful career?

That's a good question. After all, we all need to work, so why does it matter whether or not we find ourselves with a meaningful career, right?

Do you want to take a guess as to how many days you'll probably work over the course of your life?

Over eleven thousand days.

In terms of prison, that's over 30 years.

Let that sink in.

Over 30 years doing a job that you hate doing.

Sounds a whole lot like doing "hard time" doesn't it?

Now are you beginning to see why it's important to have a meaningful career?

The average worker today goes through six or seven career changes and has about a dozen jobs in total.

And most of those people do not have meaningful careers.

These poor people drag themselves to work every day, hating their jobs and bringing with them an entire host of negative feelings that permeate every part of their lives -- friends, family, social activities. They have this huge weight they carry around and it can be overwhelming.

So what's the solution?

Simple -- build a more meaningful career for yourself.

Something amazing happens when you find yourself working in a meaningful career. Your entire outlook changes. Going to work no longer becomes something that you dread. Instead, you meet each day with a sense of purpose and excitement -- and that will translate to those around you, as well.

But how do you set about building a more meaningful career?

The first thing you want to do is some self-analysis. Find out what really matters the most to you -- where you have your passion and your drive. Look at those areas that give you the most pleasure and focus on building them into something that will translate into a meaningful career.

Hone in on your unique gifts. Everyone of us has something that we can do well -- and that comes naturally to us. By using the natural talents and abilities that you have and combining them with whatever your passion happens to be, you might discover that you've found a niche area that you can fill.

Keep in mind that others have done exactly what you're trying to do. When we're first trying to start out with building that meaningful career we so desperately want, it's easy to get discouraged -- and we forget that others have done it before.

The most important step in building a meaningful career for yourself is the one step that most people never do -- and that's making a decision.
Yes, they're unhappy with their lives and they want to do something else but rather than actually take the step necessary to get them on the right path, they remain where they are -- unhappy and miserable.

Once they've made the decision, they can take action -- they can take a college course on the subject they're interested in or they can read books on their interest or they can set up interviews with people who are also doing the job they love to do and find out what steps were taken to get to where they are.

If you're looking to build a meaningful career for yourself, there's no reason for you to just sit around and moan over where your life is. Instead, you can make the decision to change and you can go about going after your dream.

And if you do that, instead of spending over eleven thousand days hating your job, you'll be filled with an energy and excitement that you can barely contain -- and you'll discover what so many others have already learned: that it's possible to enjoy what it is that you're doing with your life.

Scott Brown is the author of the Job Search Handbook (http://www.JobSearchHandbook.com). As editor of the HireSites.com weekly newsletter on job searching, Scott has written many articles on the subject. He wrote the Job Search Handbook to provide job seekers with a complete yet easy to use guide to finding a job effectively.