3 Practical Questions for Finding Your (Happy) Career Path
As far as first-world problems go, not loving your corporate job is one of the most embarrassing and taboo.
As far as first-world problems go, not loving your corporate job is probably one of the most embarrassing and taboo.
It's embarrassing because it feels like you failed to do something really easy: Sit at a nice desk in a big building in air conditioning all day.
It's taboo because what you're doing is supposed to be the dream. Some people actually have to physically lift things at work. They wish they could sit around like you.
If you have had these thoughts, please repeat the following reminder: Sitting at a computer for 40 to 80 hours a week is no joke. As the saying goes, "How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." No matter what kind of job we have, the fact that we spend most of our waking hours doing it is enough to explain the psychological, spiritual, and even physical toll a desk job might take.
You might have heard the advice that it's okay not to love your first job, your current job, or even any job. Just hang in there for a little longer and eventually you will get to do "what you really want to do."
Even if you have to put in many more years and endure a lot of unhappiness, the end game is that someday - even if only in retirement - you will get to do what you really want to do.
All in all, maybe not a bad deal. If you know what you want out of life and you can see the finish line on the horizon, then you can look forward to riding off into the sunset.
That leads to the million dollar question: What do you really want to do?
It's a question that usually comes from a good place by people who are trying to help. You might have gotten this question from parents, teachers, career counselors, colleagues, managers, and friends. The tone of the question might vary from exasperation to curiosity, but most of the time people are sincerely trying to help you solve your problem.
Sadly, this question has never helped me. What do I really want to do? I have no idea. Be rich? Do nothing? Is this a trick question? I think I would really like to go on a beach vacation forever.
If you've found that it's actually very easy to answer this question, please do share your wisdom.
Among the other questions that have never been helpful to me:
If money didn't matter, what would you do? (Answer: Nothing, sorry. I would do nothing and I'm not ashamed of it.)
What are your core values / what's most important to you? (Answer: Health, happiness, family, stability - probably the same as everyone else. Not sure that narrows down my job search.)
What are you interested in? (See #1 above.)
All these questions have one thing in common. They imply that needing to earn money is what makes a job miserable, so subtract that from the equation and you're left with "what you really want to do." That would be your true calling, untainted by the need to make money.
So to recap: (A) Most of us need to make money, (B) Making money is a pain, and (C) Money doesn't even buy happiness. Great.
Does this mean most of us are facing a life sentence of waiting for the workday to end and the end of needing to work?
I hope not! If how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, then instead of asking these big questions to try to change our lives, we might try it the other way around - changing our day-to-day so it can add up to a better life. Through trial and error, I've come across some more immediately relevant introspective questions over the years that I hope will be more helpful to you.
1. What actions, big or small, do you love or hate doing in your day to day work?
Instead of trying to pinpoint your one true passion, which probably isn't one single thing anyways, make a list of each and every element of your day and think about why it felt positive or negative.
What exactly was it that you enjoyed about speaking up in that meeting or finishing that assignment? Maybe it was the satisfaction of fixing something that was broken or helping someone else. Maybe it was the ah-ha moment of trying to understand something complicated and finally having it 'click' for you.
Next, look at the opposite scenarios. What parts of your day made you feel bored, impatient, or demoralized? Maybe it was doing a repetitive task that didn't challenge you or sitting alone to do heads-down work without being able to chat with anyone or brainstorm ideas together.
Understanding what day-to-day tasks actually make us feel confident and happy is so much more relevant than knowing if we're interested in math or science, business or arts.
You might learn something that you didn't know about yourself and you can start filling your days with what truly empowers you.
2. Who has made you feel the most empowered, confident, and valued?
We are all familiar with the wisdom that you are the average of the people you spend the most time with. Or to use a more direct maxim, "People don't leave jobs, they leave managers." However you choose to illustrate the point, the conclusion is that people are an essential ingredient to a happy work life.
No matter what kind of corporate job you have - even if you tried doing data entry in the office basement - someone would eventually find you. There is simply no escaping people.
On the bright side, people are the lifeblood of success. No one can succeed without a role model to teach them, colleagues to support them, and the institutional knowledge that allows them to stand on the shoulders of prior generations.
Who has empowered you in your life so far? Feel free to go back as far in time as you like to find the people who made you feel like your best self. It can be from your personal or professional social circles. Maybe it was the supervisor who took the time to introduce you to everyone and made sure you got every learning opportunity. Maybe it was a parent or friend who believed in you and made you feel like you could accomplish anything in the world. These people are not only the blueprints for your future colleagues but also the kind of role model you should be for those coming after you.
On the other hand, think about the people who didn't make you feel strong and confident and try to identify exactly why. Maybe it was someone who put in minimal leadership effort or never considered your ideas. I have a feeling you don't need too many examples here to get the gist.
So that's two key ingredients to a happy work life so far: doing the daily tasks that empower you with the people who empower you.
3. What is something you do better than anyone else?
Last but not least - yes, there is something you do better than anyone else.
It might not always feel that way because having a special talent seems like an insurmountably high bar. Instead of racking your brain to figure out your natural born gift, try this instead: what is something you care more about, and spend more time and energy on, than anyone else?
Imagine you're hanging out with your friends or family. There's the person who always knows which restaurant to book because they obsessively research everything. There's the person who can lend you anything in an emergency because they've got provisions packed for the apocalypse. And there's definitely one person in every group who can't be allowed to leave early because they are the glue that holds everyone together, and caring for people is no small feat.
The answer doesn't have to be one thing or the thing, just something or anything.
It can be big and amorphous, like being a great conflict mediator, or small and finite, like making the perfect party playlist. The purpose is not to start building a whole career around one talent, but to start pulling on one thread and seeing where else it leads. Or perhaps the better metaphor is that this is the first thread of many that you will weave into your own complex, lifelong narrative.
The best part about this narrative is that it will have you at the center - not some dream title, company, or industry which might not even exist yet or won't exist in the future. You're a person, not a new line of shampoo or a luxury car, so it's what you care about that matters, not the buyer.
You might find that you've been telling yourself the wrong story all along and even shortchanging yourself. Maybe everyone else tells a certain story about hard work and efficiency but you just can't help but drop by every person's office each morning to chat. As a result, you understand people's concerns that no one else thinks is important because it's not a part of their story. You might have watched everyone else get A+'s, win awards, and seemingly never make mistakes, but you just can't help but get bored even cracking open the textbook. As a result, you've figured out how to glean the most important information and retain it for the final exam without spending a minute longer than necessary.
Simply put, if you don't like the narrative you've been telling, start telling a different one.
What's Next?
If you add up (1) the tasks enjoy doing on a daily basis + (2) the people who make you feel strong and confident + (3) the story you are in charge of telling for yourself, you just might find yourself doing "what you really want to do" day by day.
You won't have to wait eternally for that someday when you can trade the misery of what you know you hate for the fear of what you can't really be sure you'll love.
As corporate professionals, we can turn our disadvantages (bureaucracy, inefficiency, boredom) into advantages (stability, security, and a certain kind of freedom). Use your environment take on the tasks that empower you; reach out to make connections with people who can help you; turn your boredom into self-disciplined reflection.
We don't need to wait for permission - or retirement - to do what we really want to do. Sure, you might still need to save up for that dream vacation or that home improvement. But once you know who you are, the rest is history, and you are the one who gets to write it.