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Do you wish every weekend was a long weekend – a very long weekend? Do you dread Sunday evenings? Do you start looking forward to Friday afternoon by mid-day on Monday? It is estimated that somewhere between 25% and 50% of Australian workers are unhappy with their current job. A recent Gallup Global poll estimates that up to 85% of workers worldwide are disengaged from their work. So only 15% of those sampled consider themselves to be actively committed to their work. That’s a lot of people who are not enjoying their work. And up to 25% of workers don’t want simply to change their jobs, they want to change their careers. Given that 5 days a week we spend 50% or more of our waking hours working, that’s a sad indictment of work.
If you believe that job dissatisfaction is inevitable, it’s not. In fact, you deserve to be happy with your work and here’s why: We are all born with natural abilities (aptitudes) – activities that we are good at, even before we practice them or receive any training. “It’s what you’re good at.” It’s those things that “come easy” to you. Not only do certain things come easy to you, but you also feel happy when you do them – you give yourself credit for doing well (intrinsic rewards) and others give you credit as well (extrinsic rewards).
The reason that dissatisfaction is avoidable is that we instinctively seek mastery of our natural abilities – we are even compelled to do it. It’s how we are built psychologically and even physically. Viewing mastery from an evolutionary perspective, survival is the first goal. Having each member of the tribe doing the work that they are most talented at is natural, logical and life-sustaining. If you are dissatisfied at work, it may be that you are not seeking to develop and master your natural abilities. This doesn’t mean that mastery is easy – it’s still hard work. But it does mean that the pursuit of mastery is the right work in the right direction, not hard work for the sake of hard work. Mastery is the opposite of “no pain, no gain” – work should not be inherently painful. It’s still work, but it’s work with a small “w”, not work with a capital “W”. So how do we know what we are good at (aptitudes)? And can we find something we are good at, and at the same time motivates us to higher levels of mastery (interests)? Is there a combination of aptitudes and interests that resonates with the beliefs that guide us (personal values)? Job dissatisfaction can be traced to several factors – dissatisfaction with pay, job insecurity, lack of advancement opportunities, unhappiness with one’s boss, etc. But oftentimes, it’s simply because people are in the wrong careers – they are doing work that doesn’t match up with their aptitudes, interests and values. In effect, either they don’t understand themselves or they aren’t able to manifest this self-knowledge in their work life.
Career planning – at its most fundamental level – starts with an investigation of aptitudes, interests and values. Before you think about a career or a new job, you need to know what you like to do (interests), what you are good at (aptitudes) and your preferred work environment (values). You need to understand these well, or any job may be just that – simply another job. Each of your key personal characteristics should be measured separately. Whether one uses qualitative techniques, quantitative techniques or a combination of both, they need to be measured. And then integrated into your personal Career Profile which you will then continually use to guide your career and job decisions.
