It's important to build your dream career from the inside out, that is, from your Inner Compass. If you do that, you can have your dream career along with your dream income. If you don't, you'll have a job, and maybe even a job trajectory called a career path. But it won't be a dream career unless it satisfies those core inner components by which our lives have meaning and purpose.

The soul of our dreams has the power to move us and others in unexpected ways. That power cannot be denied; it must be expressed or we feel somehow lacking and smaller than we want to be. It takes courage to take those steps in the world, to make space for our dreams to flourish there. Find your own inspiration from the story below. Then begin to actualize your own dreams.

Sometimes we can be 'taken over' by a clear, passionate, dedicated life purpose. Many great men and women have felt it. To get swept up by this inner inspirational force can be both frightening and exhilarating. Many of those who allowed this force to drive them achieved great success. This is the decision we all must make. Do we unleash these powerful forces or do we play it safe?

Why do we give up on getting our dream career? The bottom line is that we allow doubt to creep in. Once we do that, our focus shifts from going for what we want to all the reasons we think we can't have it. Open your heart to the passion and purpose within and see what happens.

We all have those typical excuses for not going for our dream job. We say they're 'reasons'. They're anything but. They are rationalizations to help us feel more comfortable making a choice to stay put instead of to move forward. See if any of these excuses apply to you. Are you stopping yourself? Or are you supporting yourself? I hope it's the latter. Your dreams are too important to wait.

We all have those typical excuses for not going for our dream job. We say they're 'reasons'. They're anything but. They are rationalizations to help us feel more comfortable making a choice to stay put instead of to move forward. See if any of these excuses apply to you. Are you stopping yourself? Or are you supporting yourself? I hope it's the latter. Your dreams are too important to wait.

Today's headlines have brought the greed and avarice demonstrated by many companies and individuals out in the open. These dynamics have dominated our economic life for some time. No wonder this house of cards has collapsed. But these dynamics also impact us as individuals as we try to find a balance between having a job and having a purpose.

Fear can prevent us from going after our dream career. Yet pulling back on our efforts to develop a meaningful career during economically stressful times is exactly the wrong thing to do. By examining companies that both retracted and grew during the Great Depression, we can see how taking a path of growth for ourselves; no matter what is going on around us - is the path to our dream career.

The word 'Success' is everywhere. But people don't often stop to consider what they mean by success. Real success includes all parts of us as human beings: our values, our character, our desire to make a contribution, our connections to family and friends. Broaden your definition of Success to include all these elements. If you do, you will not only BE successful. You will FEEL successful.

Each of us are so unique that even when hundreds, or thousands of us do the same job, we all bring to it a uniqueness of purpose and even destiny that makes our experience of what we do, and others' experience of us, very different. To discover more subtle and important aspects of a meaningful career, it's a good idea to look beyond our job function and discover what it is we are really doing.