Finding Your Professional Joy: Unveiling the Gems in Your Job

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With each edition, I aim to share insight in 5 minutes or less to help you move from dissatisfaction to enjoyment in your career.?To ensure you never miss an issue, click the Subscribe button in the upper right corner above.

Three weeks ago, I started a new series, “Happy at Work: Strategies for Finding Fulfillment in Your Career .”?I talked about how having the opportunity to do what we do best every day strongly correlates with our career engagement and fulfillment.

I shared three steps to help you move in the direction of having the opportunity to do what you do best every day:

• Know your strengths
• Identify what part of your job you enjoy the most
• Discuss with your manager what you would like to do more of in your role.

Last week I expanded on the first step in “Know Thyself – The Art of Discovering Your Strengths .”

This week I’d like to explore further step two - the importance of and how to identify what part of your job you most love.?

Chances are there is some part of your job you don’t love.?In my LinkedIn poll last week, 38% said they no longer feel in control of their career.?In my previous poll, many of you weighed in on how lack of fulfillment/purpose, work-life balance, and growth opportunity were pain points in your careers.?

If you’re focused on all that is wrong with your career, it could be tempting to skip this step of exploring what you love about it.?Please don’t.

As professor, researcher, and author Art Markman, Ph.D. puts it in his article “What Do You Like About Your Job? ”: “Leaving your job because you’re dissatisfied with the work you’re doing seems reasonable, but if you haven’t given thought to what would actually make you happy, you might end up in the same dissatisfying situation. It’s worth spending some time figuring out what you actually like about your job before making any moves.”

Take stock of what activities you’ve engaged in at work over the last month. If you’re struggling to think of anything you enjoy in your job, I encourage you to block off a good chunk of uninterrupted time to devote some thought to this. A practical resource that can help you with this step is the Good Time Journal Exercise from “Designing Your Life – How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life ” by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans.?The two elements of the Good Time Journal are:

• The activity log (where you record where you’re engaged and energized).?All of us are motivated by different work activities.?The challenge is figuring out which ones motivate you – with as much specificity as possible.?The activity log is a daily log that lists your primary activities and how engaged and energized you were by those activities.?
• The reflections (where you record what you’ve learned).?This is where you look over your activity log and notice trends, insights, and surprises – anything that offers clues to what does and doesn’t work for you.

Here is an example from the book:

The author’s reflections:

• He noticed that his drawing class and office hours reliably created flow states.?The authors’ definition of flow: “Flow is engagement on steroids.?Flow is that state of being in which time stands still, you’re totally engaged in an activity, and the challenge of that particular activity matches up with your skill – so you’re neither bored, it’s too easy, nor anxious because it’s too hard.”
• Teaching and date night were the activities that returned significantly more energy than they consumed.?Doubling up on these activities would be one way to energize his week.
• His weekly faculty meeting is sometimes full of interesting conversations and sometimes not, so he drew two arrows on his energy diagram.
• He was unsurprised that budget meetings sucked the energy out of his day – even though he appreciates their importance.

The author used this information to adjust his schedule to surround these less engaging activities with more engaging ones and reward himself when he completes “energy-negative” tasks.?I’ll get into this more next week, but for this week, it’s all about awareness.?

What activities have brought you joy over the last month?

In addition to this exercise, Markman offers up some thoughtful questions to consider in his article above:

1.????Where do I find the most satisfaction? Is it in the process of doing my work or in the final outcome??

As I mentioned last week, as a Learner, I’ve always been more excited by the learning process than the outcome.?For people who are more outcome-oriented, aligning with the organization's mission is essential.

2.????How do my values align with my work?

As a coach, I spend a lot of time here with my clients and have several exercises to accompany this, but the Workview and Lifeview exercises in “Designing Your Life” are a great place to start.

3.????What do I want to be able to say I’ve accomplished?

An exercise to support this is also worth blocking off some time.?Project ahead to your 75-year-old self and write a letter to your current self.?What is your 75-year-old self most proud of??Any regrets??What wisdom do they share with you??This exercise will help inform your desired legacy.??

Once you understand what part of your job you enjoy the most, you’re ready to start optimizing your role – a topic we’ll dive into next week – so you can be more engaged, have more career fulfillment, and ultimately more joy in your work.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s edition of "Tips for Career Satisfaction."

My passion is to help you regain control of your career so you will love your work.?If you want to explore this further, I’d love to talk with you! ?Schedule time with me here .?