How do I find meaning in my job?
We think that your happiness and satisfaction in your work becomes greater when you use your working hours on what brings you meaning. It is not always for the sake of work, but there is created actual values that are more important than just what I am doing.
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How do I find more meaning in my job?
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Is your career at a stand still? Do the others get all the exciting jobs? Do you as a loyal employee accepted for way too long that others’ needs have controlled your career? Do you want to take initiative back and move from the backseat to the drivers seat? Then hop aboard and become inspired.
Between those who expect to switch jobs in 2021 indicates:
- 37% bad leadership as the reason
- 34% bigger opportunities for development
- 29% that they want a higher salary
- 20% searching for a clearer meaning with the job.
We have a relative high mobility on the job market – 16% switch jobs every year, our average seniority is 7 years. With 2,9 mio. employed (DST 2021) it means that 464.000 are switching jobs within a year. The danes are happy for with their jobs like never before, 70% think to a high or very high degree, that their work assignments are meaningful and interesting. (Epinion, january 2021).
Those who switch jobs express that they feel better (32%), they have bigger influence on the work day (31%), they have gotten assignments that fit better (28%) or they experience that they are more acknowledged (26%). At TalentInsights we can nod in agreement to the numbers. Many people are looking to get away from deficient leaderhsip, and are looking for jobs that contains grater self-determination, flexibility and development possibility. (Epinion januar 2021).
How do I get more work satisfaction?
Dissatisfaction with the closest leader and missing development opportunities is something we see with many of our customers when we meet them for the first time. It is talked about as missing work satisfaction, or in concrete form as experienced stress and feeling overlooked.
The above statement is often a sign that the employee has long overheard their own wish for greater satisfaction. But unfortunately he/she is stuck and doesn’t know what to do. At times it can be impossible to see the career and development with new perspectives, and thereby moving themselves.
This results in us doubting. We doubt our talents, our competencies and the decisions we have previously made. We are losing our professional self confidence and trust in ourselves. It is truly a tough place to be. Therefore it can be good to start with looking after your talents and re-finding the job satisfaction.
When you know your talents it becomes easier to find the connection between what you are good at and where you feel you can be yourself the most. Some talents are “loud”, while others are “silent”, and it can be nice to get acknowledgement on the fact that it is better to give after for your own talents, than attempting to keep a facade. Talents that are used are developed and turned into personal strengths.
In 2018, Charlotte started on an education after a long career in sales. For many years she had not experienced job satisfaction and felt more and more demotivated. So when the chance came to create a new way of living through a marketing education, she took it. It was also through this education at CPH Business that Charlotte for the first time was introduced to her talents.
”When my talents were presented to me, I found out that I had been having the wrong jobs. This is because when I got my first jobs I wasn’t critical. Just like many others I followed the career path that naturally unfolded itself from my first job. This made me enter the job market in the wrong way.”
This story is far from unique. Many of the people we meet at TalentInsights share the same story as Charlotte. This is in part because we way too rarely stop early in our career, and question whether we are on the right path. We quickly get stuck in patterns that we think are right for us, but that doesn’t create job satisfaction in the long run.
”I have worked for 20 years with my lowest talents and therefore I haven’t been satisfied with the jobs I’ve had. It is only now that I find out what jobs I need to search for – on the basis of my talents. I also dare to say no towards that which does not motivate me, because I have a newly found self confidence in the knowledge I have about myself and my talents.”
Charlotte Heibø Bloch
(Try a talent test yourself – completely free)
How can you become aware of your own talents?
How can you start working with your talents? If you can recognize some of the signs that we have talked about above, then it is a good idea to take some time out of your calender to feel it out. When we need to find out if we have our talents in play, there are 3 signs you need to look for.
- Longing after being used
Do you feel that you are allowed to use the competencies and abilities that you have? Is there connection between your subject knowledge and your personal opportunities?
Your talents are an expression of where you have the strongest synapses in your brain and they instinctively want to be used. Therefor there are some activities and assignments, that pull in you more than others. Your talents long after being put into play and showing what they can do. For this reason you will be able to feel when you have your talents in play, through work satisfaction.
2. Quick relevant learning
Last time you had the opportunity to learn something new, did you sense that it was a “game”, or did you sit with a feeling of it being a waste of time? Learning is good, but relevant learning is even better.
If you learn something new within areas, where you have your talents in play, you add knowledge quicker than the average. It comes to you naturally and easily. And you want to learn more. Your talents work as an accelerator on the new wisdom. That something makes sense for you, that you can see connections and perspectives are often proof of your talents helping you.
3. Satisfaction with the job and yourself
Are you looking forward to going to work? Are you looking forward to solving the assignments that you are expected to solve? Does your inner motivation put limits on your engagement?
Our brains award us, when we have our talents in play. It just feels so good to have assignments, where we have our talents in play. It is exciting and meaningful. Use of the talents makes sure that we free up awards in our brain, and become motivated for more and achieve satisfaction.
3 aspects you should pay attention to, in order to create the most satisfied version of yourself.
- Use the talents you have
- Use the talents so that you are developed and learn underway
- Use the talents so it brings meaning and serves a purpose
Can you define your strengths and talents?
A strength isn’t what you are good at, and a weakness is not what you are bad at. A strength is the feeling of being able to do soemthing, to perform without becoming tired and worn out. When a strength is working you feel a sense of flow state. You become so occupied that your focus becomes unclear. You produce a result without you compromising with your satisfaction.
A strength is exactly and activity, that strengthens you. It pulls in you to complete it, it makes time fly while you do it, and it makes you feel strong. When we have our talents in play within our flow area, we feel that we can be ourselves.
When you define a strength in this way, you are the best person to put words on your talents. You are the one that can feel what activities you are longing for in order to be satisfied.
You are the only one, that knows what activities gives you the most energy. Someone else can judge your performance or the quality and quantity of your work – but you, and only you can recognize the feeling of using your strengths. What does your gut tell you – Do you feel good? Are you satisfied?
Status quo, is my own perspective too narrow?
Sometimes we create a certain picture of ourselves. This results in us being stuck in specific roles and tasks at work. But work life is not static and therefore we always experience new angles. It is when we get inspired and create a different experience, that we are ready to use our abilities in new ways.
Maybe it’s a good time for some self reflection? Are you ready to think differently about your work life? The labor market is hot, there is a need for qualified labor, so maybe it’s now you need to take a re-design into consideration? We and our partners work with guiding ambitious people to understand who they are, so that they can recreate the meaning with their work life, the strength and job satisfaction.
To see people get up, smile and get the spark in their eyes to show that: I can, I believe in myself and I know that I will succeed. That is the biggest joy in our approach to personal development.
It’s not about defining yourself, but accepting that we are constantly in development. That safety that occurs when we feel that we can easily follow along, we can navigate in movement, we can solve new tasks without formal training. Yes, being fine with “hacking” ourselves to new knowledge and insight. Then we are on the right path, we are not sitting and waiting on others to tell us what we need to do. We do it because it brings meaning. We create our own job, we solve tasks without being stressed.
The big question now is: Are you satisfied and are you living out your potential?
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