The three requirements for a fulfilling career

This is Day 5 of the Diagnose Your Career Unhappiness.?Want to listen to the?expanded audio versions?of these lessons? You can find them on?Apple,?Spotify,?and?Everywhere Else.

Imagine waking up each morning and looking forward to the day ahead.

Feeling that your career isn't just something you HAVE to do to afford your lifestyle

but that it’s a true expression of who you are.

That may sound completely unattainable based on where you currently are.

But this is exactly what happens when you experience career alignment.

If we understand career unhappiness as the disease state

then career alignment is the state of health.

The state of optimal functioning for your career.

Today we are diving into the three main ingredients of career alignment.

Values Alignment: Your Career's Compass

Values alignment in your career is about ensuring that your work is in harmony with what you consider most important in life.

Your values are where you want to spend your time and energy.

And because work takes up so much of our time

When the work we are doing violates our values

it leads to dissatisfaction and burnout over time.

For example, if one of your values is family,

but you are in a job that requires constant overtime

and causes you to miss out on

weekends

and holidays

You’ll probably experience ongoing unhappiness and frustration.

When our work interferes with our ability to live out our values,

it’s like our work continually takes us away from what is most important to us.

And this is not a sustainable arrangement.

On the flip side,

When our career aligns with what we hold dear,

every day feels more meaningful.

If we value creativity and get to spend time at work brainstorming and coming up with innovative ideas,

we are going to feel alive and excited.

If we value autonomy and get to be in charge of setting up our schedule and work flow,

We are going to feel empowered and satisfied.

The more time we spend living our values,

The more fulfilled and aligned we feel.

Strengths Alignment: Playing to Your Superpowers

We're all built up of different traits and characteristics.

We have some things that we naturally excel at and other things we have to work harder at.

Basically, we all have strengths and weaknesses.

When our careers align with our strengths

Work doesn't just feel like a set of tasks to complete;

It feels like an exciting challenge to take on.

A Gallup analysis, studying the implementation of Clifton Strengths Finder results in the workplace shows us how important it is for our career to align with our strengths.

It revealed that people who use their strengths every day are

Three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life

Six times more likely to be engaged at work

8 percent more productive

15 percent less likely to quit their jobs.

They also showed that the more hours a day adults believe that they're using their strengths, they're more likely to report

having ample energy

feeling well rested

being happy

smiling, laughing

and being treated with respect.

So basically, it’s hella important for our careers to align with our strengths.

Unique Contribution: Making Your Mark on the World

This one can feel the most intangible, so let me do my best to explain.

I think of contribution as essentially what you are GIVING to the world.

It’s how you are using your time on earth to add value.

We could also think of it as how you are making a difference.

Or how you are helping people.

And the annoying part is,

As a healthcare professional, you are definitely contributing to the world.

But not all contributions are created equal.

In order for our career to be aligned with our unique contribution

we have to be making a difference in a way that is personally meaningful for us.

We have to be doing the work that we feel called to do.

Meant to do.

Our contribution can feel meaningful when we get to use our unique gifts and talents to help people.

When we are helping a certain group of people, that is particularly important to us.

Or when we are solving a problem that we are really passionate about.

Or some combination of the three.

There is no universal standard for what makes work meaningful.

A contribution that feels meaningful to one person

May feel like a boring day of checking off boxes for another person.

So the important part here is tuning into: what is actually meaningful to us.

When our career is aligned with our unique contribution we feel a deep sense of meaning and purpose in our everyday work.

When any of these three areas of are out of alignment, that's when we start to experience career unhappiness.

Over the next three days, we will dive deep into each area.

So we can pinpoint exactly which pieces are out of alignment for you.

Want the audio version of this lesson, where I expand on each piece a little more? It’s on the Life After Medicine Podcast on Apple, Spotify,?and Everywhere Else.