life@work

Why You Should Know What You Want

After years of talking to people about their careers, it's become clear to me that there are a whole lot of people succeeding in good jobs who have no clue what they really want to be doing.

It's the price of being both highly competent and habitually taking the next opportunity just because it has arrived. This pattern works for a while, sometimes many years.

And then one day when we take a look at the bigger picture of our career and our life, we realize that we lost track of what we really care about and enjoy doing.

Or sometimes we simply grow out of our job or industry. We lose interest, and we haven't thought of what could come next that would be a better fit.

Knowing what we want requires a little introspection, an activity many of us resist. Here are the top reasons why:

• I'm too busy to reflect.
• Being introspective doesn't get anything done.
• This is too large a question to solve, so I'll just stay with the status quo - it's good enough.
• Nobody gets what they really want, so I'll just stay with the status quo - it's good enough.
• It's a terrible economy - I better stay put.

But here's the good news: you don't have to leave for a week-long silent retreat to address this question of what you want. You don't have to come up with "the" magic answer or take risks greater than you can responsibly handle.

You can understand what you want, enjoy and care about at work by tuning in briefly yet frequently to what you're doing and how it's affecting you. Are you engaged or bored? By what? Are you dreading tomorrow or looking forward to the challenge? Why do you think this is true? 

By checking in often and perhaps writing a few observations down, you stay connected to yourself. You don't lose yourself quite so completely to the busyness of your days and the demands of your job.

When you frequently consider your desires, likes and dislikes about your career, it results in you having meaningful and fruitful conversations with contacts and knowing when to raise your hand for certain projects. You lay the foundations that attract the people and opportunities that will help you get more of what you want.

Knowing what you want in your career is not something you answer four times in your life, but something you consider weekly, in small portions. This is because most of the time getting what you want is a result of many small decisions and actions rather than just a few sweeping, dramatic decisions.

Whenever I meet with clients who tell me they want to change jobs, first we take a close look at what they've got going for them at the current one. Many times there is still room to improve their experience substantially without having to make a dramatic job change.

Don't be afraid to ask yourself what you want. Even if you have a high salary and an impressive title and believe you couldn't possibly walk away from that, realize that no one's asking you to. Just hang in there and see what happens when you dare to connect your awareness of what you want with what you're actually doing.

I'd love to hear: What do you want to be doing?

photo by swisscan

Is the Nonprofit World for You?

Who in the corporate world hasn't dreamed about changing jobs or careers and doing something that "really matters?"

When you're fed up with being a cog in a big corporate wheel, or you just can't seem to care about selling more widgets, the grass looks a whole lot greener over on the nonprofit side of the fence, where they're saving the world and making a difference.

But before you glue those rose-tinted glasses permanently onto your head, take the time to assess what it is you're really wanting and needing in your career and talk to people who are working in nonprofits.

Just as there are companies in the corporate world that are well-run and poorly run, so are there functional and dysfunctional organizations in the nonprofit world. Not all of them are saving the world, and some of them are going bust due to lack of funds and lack of strong leadership.

Anita Bruzzese has a fantastic post out today on this topic that I highly recommend you read.

Also, this interview with Laura Gassner Otting, founder of the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, a search firm that works exclusively with charitable organizations and nonprofit job seekers, is loaded with essential advice.

If you want to see whether transitioning into the nonprofit world is for you, here's where to start:

Ask yourself why

Switching sectors is a major decision. What draws you to nonprofits? Are you merely running from the corporate world? What does the nonprofit sector offer you that the corporate world can't give you? Take some time reflecting on what you really want.

Examine your experience with nonprofits

How do you feel about your experience as a volunteer or board member? Was/is the experience enlightening, frustrating, exciting, discouraging? If you don't have experience, this is the time to sign up. There's no better way to make essential contacts and get a realistic job preview than volunteering.

Look for a compelling mission

People who are happily working in the nonprofit sector care about the mission of the organization they work for. What are you passionate about? What are your strong interests? There are many lists of nonprofit organizations online to help spur your thinking, such as this one at Love to Know and Idealist.org.

Talk to people

When you find organizations whose missions speak to you, research them online and in person through informational interviews. Learn about their challenges and successes. Test your assumptions about what it would be like to work there and how it's run. What kind of jobs exist there? What kinds of personalities and temperaments do well there? Where do they need volunteers? Consider volunteering if you feel inspired by what you hear.

Assess what you can contribute

After you learn about the work that interesting nonprofits do and the kinds of people they employ, look at your key skills and experiences. How could they match up to the needs these organizations have? 

This kind of research is essential before you make the decision to switch employment sectors. You can't make a decision based on stereotypes or your imagination - you want to know the facts.

I'd love to know: How did you transition from the corporate to the nonprofit world?

photo by woodleywonderworks

Mom's life@work Post #5: How Work Is Like Blackberry Bushes

This post is fifth in my "mom's life@work" series, which is bridging the work I do here with what I'm up to at Mom In The Balance. Other posts include Help for the Working Mom, Blend or Separate?, How to Reduce Your Stress During the Second Shift, and  Why My Kids Should Tune Me Out.

How do you want work to fit into the rest of your life?

Let's face it - work has a way of taking over our lives if we let it. In that way it's kind of like blackberry bushes. Here in Seattle, blackberry bushes will grow over your car seemingly overnight.

One of my friends let the blackberries and ivy and whatnot grow for years in her backyard. She never stepped foot out there. Then after she couldn't stand it anymore she rented a couple of goats and had them clear the place.

Do you wish you could get a couple of goats to take away your job, or are you hoping for a less drastic solution?

Here's where a vision may help you out. A vision is a clear sense of what you want for your future. It anchors your decision making around where and how you work.

Instead of a vision, most of us have something more like a vague hope (e.g., "Please let the stress ease up soon") or a pipe dream ("Someday I'll sell some paintings") that we believe is never going to come true.

In her book, Work + Life: Finding the Fit That's Right for You, author Cali Williams Yost does a fantastic job of describing how you can create a vision of how you want work to fit into your life and make the kinds of decisions that support that vision.

Will you get what you want just by thinking about it and writing it down? Of course not, but you'll have a direction that you're aiming for and a strategy. You'll figure out whether you want to change how you work, when or where you work, and how to factor in realities such as company policies, your personal finances, what your partner's expectations are, and more.

If you're frustrated by how work is fitting into (or taking over) your life, start addressing it today. Explore what you want as far as relationships, leisure, community and other life stuff goes. Be open to change and think outside of your usual boxes to get closer and closer to your vision.

Attend to those blackberry bushes every day and let the goats go to your neighbor's house!

I'd love to know: What's your vision for how work fits into the rest of your life?

photo by Jami Dwyer