Are you a believer in the mystical money versus happy work paradox?

Many of us are and its one of the biggest reasons career coaching clients find me. Theyve successfully climbed up the ladder within whatever corporation seemed coolest in their town, but theyre not happy anymore: theyve hit the point where they feel a deep craving to stretch their wings (because they outgrew their current job a year ago), and feel completely paralyzed because theyre making a healthy paycheck. Theyre hamstrung (and frustrated!) by the belief that leaving their current job will require a decrease in pay.

Its a common belief: our culture and economy have seemingly invented a paradoxical spectrum with money at one end, happiness at the other end, and a mediocre middle ground where you sortof get a little of each, but arent really satisfied.

If youre unwilling to accept the idea that in order to make more money, you need to be willing to sacrifice happiness, youre in the right place.

I think the truth of the money versus happy paradox is nuanced: for some people, its absolutely true that for traditional employment in their desired industry, youre not likely to be on track to make a 6-figure salary during your career. (And if thats you, dont sweat it! Study after study shows that marginal happiness doesnt really increase much once were making over $70,000/year in salary, adjusted for cost of living in your market, and you can take comfort in the fact that many less-happy people use higher paychecks as a way to numb out unhappiness through consumption.)

But for others of us, if you can align the things that you like to do with things that have a high market value, you can find ways to turn your passion into a profitable profession. Youll feel like a magician in making money and happy move in the same direction, and proving all the stuck and grumpy people around you wrong.

So if your fun factors align with any of these 8 high salary drivers, you can create a strategy to be able to move the needle on both joy and pay at the same time: