Happy Saturday Reader,
If you could have more of something in your professional life, what is it? What are the missing ingredients to you feeling more fully engaged with your work?
There’s a pattern to how we feel at the end of our workdays. It wasn’t too long ago when frustration consumed me. In that job, I was missing key ingredients important to me. How I felt impacted my marriage, my kids and my overall well-being. I worked on bringing some of these into my job, but finally determined that I needed to create my own environment. So, I made a change.
The Taking Stock Question
What’s your pattern? Are you in the right place, doing the right work, for you, at this point in your professional journey?
I’ve worded the question with qualifiers:
The work: Your job focus, content, tasks, level
The place: The structure, environment, culture and people
The time: At the current stage of your career and how long you’ve been in this role
If your answer is “hell, yes”, then good for you!
Anything short of this full level of engagement is a gap. A gap in satisfaction, interest, or fulfillment.
So, what’s the gap?
The Core Question: What is Missing?
If you could have more of something in your professional life, what is it? What are the missing ingredients to you feeling more fully engaged with your work?
The what’s missing question is truly worth examining.
If you’re frequently going home frustrated, angry, or emotionally exhausted, something isn’t working.
If work no longer holds your interest or you feel ready for the next thing and are stuck, action may be required.
Key Ingredient Types
When thinking of what’s missing, the following categories can help break it down:
Values: Those things that are truly important to you. When you’re out of sync with your core values, it will impact you.
Success Factors: In my experience, we all have a set of requirements that enable us to be happy doing our best work.
Growth: As professionals, we go through cycles of learning, mastery and then boredom. Sometimes professional renewal can be found in your current job. Often, it means a move.
The beauty of the what’s missing question is that it leads you in a positive direction. Rather than wallowing in blame, complaints or relinquishing your personal power to others, you identify what’s important to you.
When you can pinpoint what might be missing, other questions follow.
Resource: If you are feeling stuck, resentful, or at risk in your current job, get some traction and momentum with the 11-strategies workbook.
That’s it for this issue.
Until next week,
Ian Christie
CEO & Chief Career Strategist - Bold Career