After his first week at school, my son saw a fireworks display for the freshmen. He noticed the people watching over it and wondered who would prefer that role to watching the fireworks.
I wrote about the role these workers played. It carried duties that the audience could easily overlook. When considering a job, those ordinary responsibilities deserve our attention. What will a working day ask us to do?
That question gives a BaZi career reading a useful starting point. Put the actual work beside any possibilities raised in the chart discussion.
Consider this imagined choice. An employee enjoys explaining ideas to customers. She is thinking about opening a small business because she wants more freedom to do that work.
Write two working weeks for her. The first contains her current tasks. The second contains the tasks the business would need: finding customers, preparing proposals, delivering work, answering questions, keeping records, and collecting payments. Mark the tasks she enjoys, the ones she has tried, and the ones she knows little about.
The phrase “work for myself” now has something concrete inside it.
Bring options into the reading
BaZi career discussion can use the chart to consider ways of learning, creating, handling responsibility, and working with people. In my book, those subjects appear through the relationships called Resource, Output, Influence, and Companion.
Ask how an interpretation connects with a task you recognize. If the discussion raises expression, for example, connect it to presenting a proposal, explaining a product, writing, or teaching. Each uses expression in a different way.
For our imagined employee, three options might be worth comparing: a role with more customer work at her current employer, a similar role elsewhere, or running her own business. She can bring these into the session and discuss the commitments each involves.
Give timing a named action
A timing question needs an action attached to it. Applying for a job, beginning a course, taking a trial assignment, and resigning carry different commitments.
Ask which action a timing recommendation addresses and the period it refers to. Then check the ordinary requirements for that action: an available role, the needed skill, a reply deadline, or time to complete the work.
The chart discussion and those practical facts can sit beside each other in your notes.
Learn something before making the largest commitment
Our imagined employee could start by speaking with someone who does the work she is considering. She could ask how that person spends a normal week, which tasks require close attention, and which parts receive little mention in a job advertisement.
Where practical, she could also try a limited assignment or relevant course before committing to a large change. The question afterward is specific: Which parts did she enjoy, which did she handle well, and which would she need help to do regularly?
Bring those answers back to the original career question. My son had noticed a role inside an event. Paying that kind of attention to the work gives you specific duties, commitments, and experiences to discuss in a reading.
Master JudithBaZi and classical Feng Shui consultant, author, and speaker. Read my story