Career Satisfaction

How to engage in your life's work in a way that goes beyond pursuing satisfaction.

In the absence of a meaningful pursuit in our work life, we often get caught up in seeking the comfort of career satisfaction.

Now, you might be saying. “What’s wrong with seeking satisfaction in your career?”

Well, there’s nothing wrong per se. It’s just a weak goal.

There’s a reason only a small minority of us find fulfillment and purpose in our life’s work. This being the type of work that holds personal significance beyond the paycheck.

It’s not because some people are fortunate enough to do the thing they love while the rest of us are left to do the mundane jobs.

Here's the truth...

Most people look at the idea of their life’s work as an attempt to simply attain career satisfaction.

Thats it...

That's the end goal for many of us!

The end goal for many people is to find a good job that will offer them the most, while having to offer as little as possible in return.

Most of us don’t engage in our life’s work in a way that requires a deeper meaning and purpose on a daily basis. Most people don’t have a spirited purpose or set of values that goes above their job responsibility.

If we don’t have to engage ourselves like this, then we’ll end up wondering why we aren’t fulfilled in our work.

Why we’re discontent, unsatisfied and unhappy on the job.

We must make empowered and transformative career changes and job decisions from a mind frame beyond simply seeking career satisfaction. Aspiring solely for career satisfaction is a mind frame of comfort and security.

It lacks the attitude for true transformation and empowerment.

What is career satisfaction?

The path of seeking career satisfaction as the end goal is like the stereotypical path someone’s parents wanted them to take. The one that’s not necessarily exciting or interesting to you, but will offer comfort, security and take all the risk off the table.

Satisfaction is a common way of assessing the contentment of a group at scale. For example, you can look at the profession of say... Accountants and ask…

“What is the career satisfaction for that profession?”

But,

Trying to assess the satisfaction of a profession is like trying to assess the satisfaction of lab mice in a cage experiment.

It’s like… who cares how satisfied you are. You’re the subject of an experiment. You’ve already lost.

I guess my point is.

Don’t become a statistic.

You must have your own career journey.

Most of the concepts attributed to career satisfaction are simply aimed at job comfort and security.

We think of job satisfaction as having good pay, benefits, time off, etc.

Those are great things to have. But they won’t stand alone in filling the human spirit for an interesting and meaningful life.

Boring…

We find meaning and purpose in work by building resilience in circumstances that are less than ideal. In fact, it is in confronting dissatisfaction that fosters a sense of pride in your journey.

We each have a storyteller within us that must overcome adversity, struggle and resistance.

This is what feeds our spirit in our life’s work.

It’s like the instinct and desire to hunt that the tiger has.

How we come to seek the path of career satisfaction

If you asked an 8-year-old, a child full of curiosity and wonderment what they wish to do when they grow up, imagine if they said, “I want to pick a job with high career satisfaction.”

They wouldn’t do that.

That would be crazy.

What they would do is pick a job that’s interesting or inspiring to them. Even if it’s unrealistic or silly.

However, when we begin to seek the comfortable and satisfactory path, it’s often at a time when our backs are against the wall. We fall into this trap when life has left us weary. When we’re trying to bounce back from failure or a setback.

At this point we think, "hmm what’s a job with some sense of career satisfaction… Maybe, I should do that."

Now, as I make my point about the pitfall of avoiding satisfactory and comfortable career goals, I want to make an important distinction.

I don’t believe you should ever be entitled or above a job or career path.

It’s just that when your back’s against the wall, the virtues we should embody are one’s of overcoming challenge and transformation.

It’s a time where you forge new meaning and purpose in your life. Not seek comfort and complacency.

How we create a spirited career pursuit

Creating a meaningful career pursuit begins with having a renewed standard that you aspire to.

It’s in having a value set, code of ethics or a moral compass that guides you. One that as you aspire towards, your career decisions will be one piece of a larger picture.

Once we adopt this framework, our attitude changes.

It no longer matters whether you’re clocked in on the job or are on vacation in South America. It doesn’t matter if your supervisor is watching you or if you’re working alone in your home office. You have a new personal value set that you must uphold for yourself.

It doesn’t matter if anyone sees or notices.

This becomes an all-encompassing life shift. It’s a change in your fundamental framework that you can use to transform your career options.

Regardless of where you’re at.

A transformative life shift

I had my own transformative shift in my early adulthood.

At one point I had a bad case of a victim mentality. I was always an ambitious person but, whenever I encountered adversity, I gave myself permission to give up.

Whenever I encountered situations that really were just inevitable challenges in my career, I would crumble.

I would put in a strong effort into what I was doing, but then I would hit a barrier or a roadblock and then get stopped in my tracks.

Like many young adults, I thought it was the world’s responsibility to cater to me.

Eventually I became aware of my own shortcomings. I realized the barrier to success required a more bulletproof mindset in a few critical situations.

I took an empowered mindset shift.

After that time, whenever I encountered a challenge that caused me to previously retreat, I chose to see it differently. These challenges I decided to see as a final critical barrier. One necessary to overcome on the way to achieving my goals. The challenges were now an opportunity to demonstrate the resilience required for success.

However, overcoming adversity wasn’t about gaining something from my career or job. It was about having a new standard. One that I required of myself above and beyond what was necessary for work.

Don’t seek outside what must come from within

When making career decisions, it’s important to avoid getting entangled in attempting to fulfill your needs from the outside inwards. People often attempt to find a job that will make them happy, or they try to find a career that will offer them satisfaction.

But there isn’t a company, corporation or job title that can offer fulfillment or career satisfaction if it’s lacking within you. Without meaning and a spirited pursuit to life in general, you can’t attain it in a job.

This can’t be outsourced elsewhere.

However, a deeper purpose is an individual pursuit that anyone has the choice to engage in.

Whether you were born into a trust fund family in a wealthy neighbourhood or born in communist Russia, you can choose to take the meaningful path in your life.

Meaning comes from within.

It’s a decision.

Nobody can take it away from you unless you choose.