How to Make Your Job Amazing ????????????

Happy new year! Did you wake up this morning excited to get to work? What? You’re not bouncing out of bed every day just to get to your desk? Well, let’s change that! Why not make 2022 the year of a new – more energized – career mindset? Challenge yourself to make your current job into as amazing a job as it can be this year.

~ Dana Theus

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JOB CRAFTING PART II: MAKING YOUR JOB AWESOME

Career Mindset Shift: The secrets to a self-directed career

?After almost two years of pandemic and the always present potential for burnout, I’m impressed with how many in the InPower Women's mastermind community are determined to find ways to make their work more meaningful in 2022.?

It’s pretty normal, even in good times, to regularly feel stuck or trapped in a job that hasn’t evolved, even when you have. Most companies take an industrial mindset to job creation, designing jobs that don’t change, even as the people who fill them grow, become more capable and ready themselves to take on completely new kinds of challenges.?

Choice is Power

If you’re waiting for your boss to get you unstuck, you may be waiting a long time. And even if you work for yourself, you may find your business hemming you into work that no longer?lights you up . At the end of the day, finding meaning and challenge in your work (and life) is a challenge that falls on your shoulders as a human being, not only as an employee or business owner.

Once you get to that stuck place, feeling a bit powerless in your career, the best thing to do is choose a new path forward. The mere act of exercising your free will makes you feel better, because it gives you a sense of personal control.?

So when you’re feeling stuck, choose one of these options, each of which leads to a place of greater satisfaction, but along a different route.

• Don’t look for satisfaction in your work at all and seek meaning and impact elsewhere.?
• Look for a?new job ?or?go out on your own
• Job craft your current role (even if you’re your own boss!) into one that’s more satisfying - become your own career development advocate internally

I am here to tell you that no path above is easier or more prone to success than the other one. Each has their thrills and their pitfalls. Everything about this decision is personal and situational.?

However, my advice is NOT to wait until you’re feeling stuck to pursue a pro-active, self-directed approach to your own career development, choosing your way forward. My advice is to go into every work day with a job crafting mindset, which seeks to evolve your work as you, yourself grow and change.?

Not Feeling Stuck? Work For Yourself?

Job Craft Anyway!

Be the wheel: Crafting your work from the inside out

The truth is that when you’re looking for your primary source of motivation externally, you will always be exhausted. So switch up the career mind game that says you should look to your employer for work motivation, and take on that responsibility yourself.?

Taking a self-determined mindset to your work is the best way to stay truly motivated and purposeful, even in the day-to-day grind. This means you switch from looking for your motivation externally to finding it internally. Instead of being a cog in the organization’s wheel, you become the wheel and your motion now centers on what drives you to keep moving.

Check out the coaching tips and resources below to dive into these concepts more deeply, and join us on January 19th for the Mastermind Job Crafting Workshop to set yourself up for 2022 success!

INPOWER WOMEN MASTERMIND MEETINGS - JOIN US? ?

Job Crafting Workshop: Making Your Job Awesome [Mastermind Zoom] January 19, 2021@ 12-1pm eastern

Join us for a mastermind workshop to learn how to breakdown a short list of skills and abilities you want to develop more proactively in your current work situation, and strategize how to negotiate with your boss and others to help you do it!

JOB CRAFTING: MUST LISTEN?|?VIEW?|?READ?

News summaries??

Taking Advantage of New Work Configurations:?“Job Craft” Your Way to Meaning?

Traditionally, organizational leaders, with the assistance of HR, are the standard bearers for creating job descriptions and outlining employees’ departmental roles. Thanks to COVID-19 and employee shortages, the way organizations configure work is changing. All this change is giving rise to a new trend that puts employees in charge of their work destiny. It’s called “job crafting” and it sits squarely in the realm of helping employees find purpose and meaning in their work. First introduced by professors Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton in 2001, the premise of job crafting is that employees can stay in their same role and make changes (some of them subtle) to what they do, who they interact with and how they view their job in ways that increase job satisfaction and engagement. Job crafting as an excellent example of many InPower principles -- in particular shifting one’s mindset to find meaning and purpose “where you are” at this moment. Want to learn more about this intriguing concept? Check out the in-depth coverage in this comprehensive piece in Positive Psychology’s?guide to job crafting .?

Excited about job crafting? Start here….

?A great place to start: exactly where you are! One of the most intriguing elements of job crafting is that you don’t have to leave your existing role to get started. In fact, you might not even need to tell your boss. (More on that in a minute.) Melanie Duppins offers?four practical job-crafting tactics ?to get you started.?

?What Do I Say to My Boss?

This is where things might get a little tricky. Just because job-crafting can be a covert, DIY job doesn’t mean it should be. It’s up to you to discern the pros and cons, as well as the land mines you’ll need to navigate in the potentially rocky terrain of self-directed career development. No matter how you proceed, it’ll require negotiations with your boss. Here are two articles that will help.

Get Clear on the “Ask”

One of the most important skills women need in the workplace is to learn to ask for what they want. That’s why we love this HBR article called,?“Having the Here’s What I Want Conversation with Your Boss.” ?Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Author Rebecca Shambaugh writes that getting clear on what you want and then asking for it demonstrates confidence.?

What to Do When You Want to Change Things Up

So let’s say that you want to stay at your job, but negotiate an entirely new set-up. (Sort of like, Job Crafting on steroids.) This article on?“Pitching for a New Position” ?from Indeed’s Career Development series outlines a six-step process to create a Job Proposal to pitch your idea. Bonus content: a 50-minute webinar that fleshes out the concepts.

?Need to explore more deeply how to craft career satisfaction in your own situation??Join us in the January 19th mastermind call?where we’ll help you workshop your way to thinking about shaping your job to make you happier, and how to negotiate with others to help you do it!

COOL JOB CRAFTING TOOL: LINKEDIN?

Not looking for a job? Who cares? LinkedIn can help you stay focused on working towards your 'perfect job'!

Many of us use LinkedIn on a regular basis, but unless you're actively looking for a job you probably don't use the job alerts. It's time to start!

Even if you don't think you'll get it for a few years, put your absolute, perfectest, most amazingest job title and keywords in to the LinkedIn Job Alert and monitor what comes up. After a few months, you'll have a very clear idea of what kinds of skills, experiences and capabilities you need to develop to get your perfect job. Or... you'll be able to refine your idea of a perfect job because you're clearer about what you actually want, if what you're getting doesn't feel all that "perfect."?Get started here .

Got a favorite app or site you can’t live without and want to share? Send us a short review we can publish in next month’s newsletter!

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RELATED RESOURCES

Latest post on InPowerCoaching.com

Job Crafting Tips: How to Negotiate With Your Boss for More Meaningful Work

As more white collar and blue collar workers alike look to their jobs for more than a paycheck, many are wondering if it’s better to quit or try to shape their current job into something more meaningful. For the latter, a more self-directed career development strategy of job crafting the role you’re already in, can be a terrific strategy if you still enjoy aspects of your work and the opportunities it creates for you.

But recrafting your current role takes some work so heed these job crafting tips. If you’re not sure whether to quit or job craft, decide first if you have the energy to negotiate with your boss. If the answer is “no,” then it may be better to start fresh elsewhere. lighten you up and give you the energy you need to find success.?Continue Reading

What's your Dream Job and How Can Knowing it Light Up Your Soul?

Let’s face it: work is work. Even the best dream job turns into a daily grind eventually. And what if you’re in a job search? Looking for a job is work, too! What can make work less work? Hint: know the answer to the question “What’s your dream job?”

Wait. You may be asking: Is it even possible to lighten your soul, seek career success and succeed at work all at once??

As part of our recent soul-lightening series of posts it’s time to take a look at the motivating power of knowing your dream job. At InPower Coaching we call it your “perfect job” because the dream isn’t about the job, it’s about you. Knowing which job would be the perfect match for your skills, motivations and goals will lighten you up and give you the energy you need to find success.??Continue Reading

"Perfect Job" Workbooks & Videos?

You don't have to be looking for a job to benefit from these InPower Coaching exercises to help you define your Perfect Job. Also included at this link are career visioning and networking exercises.?Note, this is a paid resource, included with all paid subscriptions. Check it out

UPCOMING EVENTS

Crafting a Career that Lights You Up - January 11, 2022? FREE Coach Q&A Register here ?

Beginning January 21st -?Worklife Reset Intensive

An eight-week, “bliss-based” group coaching experience for current and aspiring entrepreneurs, freelancers–and any professional who wants a more self-directed, meaning-based career. Craving more joy and prosperity in your work? Need to move past burnout?

NOW is the perfect time to to reset, refresh or reimagine your Strategic Roadmap for business and career success.?Runs January-March. Learn More

I really hope you're starting the new year with energy and optimism to make this a great year for your own career growth and progress. Please let me know if there's anything more I can do to help you get into that optimistic mindset in the months ahead.

InPowering Powerful Women,

Dana Theus

Executive Coach

InPowerCoaching.com

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