Do you jump out of bed on Monday morning eager to face the day ? or when the alarm goes off, do you groan, roll over and hide your head under the duvet? When you come back from a holiday are you refreshed and raring to go, full of new ideas and enthusiasm for your work ? or do you spend your first week back planning your next holiday?

For many people, work is a necessary evil ? it’s what we do to allow us to to do fun things in our leisure time. Sure, sometimes we get a buzz out of a busy workload or a successful presentation, but a lot of the time we probably wish we were somewhere else. Recent research found that 60 per cent of us would have chosen a different career if we had our time again; 40 per cent of people openly admit to having “drifted” into their job.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. Imagine the alternative ? you enjoy your work just as much as you enjoy your leisure time and you’d do it even if you weren’t being paid for it. Find the job you love, and you’ve effectively given yourself a seven-day weekend! Think about it ? the average person will work 40 hours a week for the best part of 40 years ? nearly 80,000 hours of your life. So doesn’t it make sense to spend your working time doing what you want to be doing?

And there’s the rub ?- most people don’t know what they really want to do. That’s partly because we are conditioned from an early age to aspire to what those around us ? parents, teachers, peers, the media ? define as a good job or career, and partly because most of us never take the time really to get to know our own talents and desires.

But it’s never too late to take control of your future and find your unique vocation.

Here are some tips on how you can: -

You can’t find out what you want until you find out who you are. What’s most important to you? What are you passionate about? What do you really want out of life? Taking the time to think about the things that really matter to you is a good starting point for finding your ideal role.

Don’t expect your ideal job to jump up and hit you straightaway. Take time to muse, let your imagination run riot and let your intuition speak to you.

Think about what you want from your working life. What are the most important aspects of your current job ? is it the money? Your work colleagues? The working environment? What features of your current job would you hate to or love to ditch?

Don’t assume that to find your ideal job you have to switch careers completely. Think about the aspects of your current job that you enjoy. Is there scope for you to negotiate spending more time on these sorts of tasks and less on the stuff you hate? Changes don’t always have to be drastic to be effective.

If you conclude that the only way you could be happy at work is to be doing something somewhere completely different, don’t jump straight in. Find a way of building a bridge to your new career.

Network: find someone who might give you some work experience, or take you on part-time. And don’t be afraid to think imaginatively -? the working environment is more flexible now than it has ever been, so allow yourself to think outside the “9 to 5” box.

Finally, remember that, in the final analysis, it’s your life, your career, and your unfulfilled potential if you don’t find and follow your dream. So go for it ? you owe it to yourself.