Yesterday morning I got a tweet from a twitterfriend that said "I wish I had your job" and it made me think about a time in my life, when I was working two jobs (as freelance makeup artist and MAC retail artist) and also persuing my jewelry design work as well. I am so fortunate to get so many emails every week from people all over the world saying how inspired they are by what I do for a living. Often I am asked how I was able to achieve my dream job and if I have any advice on how they can do it too. One email in particular mentioned how she just felt stuck, hated her current job, and was miserable because she wasn't doing what she loved. I have blogged about this before and realize that its a topic that is even more important now, in the current state of our economy. I am thinking about the people who are in a job that they dislike, and were thinking about making a move toward something that would make them happier. Now they might feel stuck as the idea of looking for another job (when their might not be one out there) is scary, so they have to stay where they are. I remember when I was working for MAC (cosmetics) years ago at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles as a retail artist. In the beginning it was amazing, working for such an incredible company and getting paid to play with makeup every day. A few months into it I realized how hard retail could be, dealing with customers who were not always friendly and sometimes angry that we were out of stock on a particular item, or just plain difficult. Having to clean constantly (anyone who has ever had to clean cosmetic tester units can attest to the tediousness of this job) and standing on my feet for hours and hours and hours and hours and…..well you get the idea. Then there are the personality conflicts and drama that arise among co-workers in the retail environment. We also had installed these halogen lights that were right at your eye level above the displays, they provided gorgeous light to see the colors of the collections, but felt like they were burning out our eyeballs all day. I was starting to feel unhappy at work and coming home really tired and crabby all the time. I was actually contemplating quitting and persuing my freelance makeup work full time again, but much like today, the economy was uncertain and freelance work was less available than before. One afternoon when I was walking home from work to my nearby apartment thinking again about quitting I realized that it was not the job that was bad, it was my attitude. I started thinking about how fortunate I was to have this job at all and decided to take a different approach. Instead of getting frustrated when a customer was being difficult I would find a way to turn the situation around and make them happy with humor and charm (which often led to them buying more lipstick!). Instead of complaining about my feet hurting and all the cleaning I had to do, I would try to find solutions to make these things better and easier. Most of all I decided to have a happy attitude no matter what the day would bring, which is not always easy, but I found that I was coming home less exhausted and feeling so much more productive and having more fun at work. Suddenly I loved my job again and look back at that time with fond memories. From that moment on I decided to always approach whatever I am doing with a positive outlook.

Finding what you love to do and making it into your livelihood should be the goal of everyone. They say that if you love what you do then it never feels like work. When you hear someone say “attitude is everything” believe it, a good attitude and love of life in general is contagious. In fact, it is a quality that we look for right away when we hire new people into the company. Its not where you start, its where you go and how you affect others along the way that makes life sweet. With a good attitude and passion for what you love to do you become unstoppable and will soon find people telling you that they wish they had YOUR job too!…
That's the way to live a sparkling life and follow your sparkling dreams! Xoxo &*****Tarina