Do you have a “fulfilling career” or a “good job”?
Transcription
Christopher Lawrence here with Change My Life Coaching. I often get asked the question, what makes a fulfilling career? Sometimes when clients come in they bring in a Venn diagram that’s made up of three circles, usually, right?
The Venn diagram says, you have to have a job that contains skills that you’re good at, and it says that you must have a job that is doing something that you’re passionate about, and then the third thing is that your job has to meet market demand. And so, I think that’s, you know, and pay well, right? So, that’s what makes a fulfilling career, but actually, I don’t think that makes a fulfilling career. I think it makes a good job. I think if you get paid well and the market needs it and you’re good at it and you have some passion for it that makes a good job.
I think that that scope, it’s such an old model, and I wish that career professionals would stop using that model ’cause it’s too narrow of a focus. Over the last few years of getting feedback on ChangeMyLifeCoaching.com, you know, with clients reaching out to me and this kind of thing, I am working with clients in office. I think we need to replace what’s in the Venn diagram. I think skills that you’re good at is a really good thing to have, but what if I don’t like doing everything that I’m good at? For example, I used to be really phenomenal with troubleshooting technology and with data entry, but just ’cause I’m good at it doesn’t mean I wanted to do it. In fact, I hated doing it (laughs).
So, just ’cause you’re good at it doesn’t mean you like it and you want more of it, but maybe there’s lots of things that you’re not good at yet, but when you do it it makes your heart sing and you could see yourself getting better at it. So, for me, one of those circles has absolutely gotta go in the new Venn diagram, one of those circles has absolutely gotta go to your job fit or what I call job fit filters. So, these are, it’s a summary of, or theme of, type of tasks that are fulfilling to you. I have mine, I look at them every single day. I’m just looking for them right now. Okay, there it is. These are mine. I don’t look at them every day, I look them once a week.
Even though I run my own business, not everything I do is enjoyable, so I try to make sure that 70 to 80% of what I do are things that fill me up. The second one about the job has to pay well and the market has to have a need for it. I agree with this to a certain point, but I think it’s too narrow of a focus. As far as the job paying well, I actually think it’s more about an entire value system. I used to make a really, really good salary in one of the corporations here in downtown Calgary, and I walked away from it and took like way less than half to start this business. Like, nothing (laughs) to start this business, you know, seven years ago.
When I struggle with this concept about money is that we keep being told that money is where it’s at, but actually, it’s not where it’s at if you don’t value money. I’m not very motivated by money. I do need it, it makes the world go around, meaning, you know, that this is our system of things, but I was happy to give up money to do something that was more fulfilling to me, which actually expressed more of my values. So, you will have values around money. You will have values around lots of other things, lifestyle, family, right?
I think the third, sorry, the second circle, number two, has absolutely gotta go to your values instead of just market need and the job having to pay well. Speaking of which, market need, that’s an interesting thing. Market need can be created. I didn’t know that I needed one of these until Apple told me that I did, right? I look at vinyl records as an example. Do you know that the highest history of record sales in humanity was in 2017? Even though this is an obsolete media, it’s actually come, it’s resurfaced, and it’s more popular than it used to be, right? And so, there’s probably lots of economists that could explain why. That’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes market demand can be created. So, I don’t even worry about that too much. And then, this thing about passion, and you’ve heard me talk about this before. Passion is fleeting. It’s like the icing on the cake. Without the cake itself it runs in all sorts of different directions. You can only eat so much of it before you start to get sick of it. So, instead of passion I like to focus on purpose. Passion doesn’t necessarily get me out of bed in the morning, but my purpose does.
My purpose is to help people find some kind of a personal connection with the work they do, and if they can’t find that personal connection, to help them find the work that does give them that personal connection. That gets me out of bed in the morning. That makes me show up at the office and help my clients and do what I need to do, you know, and help them do what they need to do to get the results that they’re looking for. And I am passionate about it, but, you know, I still have days that I don’t wake up where I feel passion every single day. You know, passion is a high emotional state and we can’t stay in a high emotional state all the time, whereas, purpose doesn’t require a high emotional state. I can be at my absolute lowest state, my lowest state of mind, my lowest emotional state, and still wake up and want to go in to fulfill my purpose. And it’s not big, right? People, when they think about life’s purpose, they think about like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, right? All of those things are great examples, but most of us are not gonna be those people, so it can be much simpler than that, right? And it can be your right now purpose. It doesn’t have to be your life purpose. So, I think that purpose and values and having the right job fit with tasks that you actually enjoy, ‘cause that’s what a job is, it’s made up of tasks.
It’s not your title and how much you get paid. It’s what you do every single day, 80% of your work. If you can get those things in line, then the center of that Venn diagram Is what we call a fulfilling career as opposed to just a good job. I hope this was super helpful for you. Thanks for listening. Please like and you can find our YouTube channel at Change My Life Coaching, and you can subscribe there. And please do check us out at ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca and you can see more of my blogs and videos.
Thanks so much, team, take care, bye-bye.
More About Christopher James Lawrence
Christopher is the Chief Value Officer and Founder of Change My Life Coaching and Co-Founder of Change My Business Coaching and the Healthy Transformations Weight Loss & Inflammation Reduction Program. Change my Life Coaching is a fast growing whole-life, leadership and business coaching company, and the only one of it’s kind. He is also the author of “Go Beyond Passion: Discover Your Dream Job”. Christopher spent 15+ years working in the corporate world with a plethora of industries and companies. His focus was primarily in planning, strategy, and leadership of change management and communication. Christopher is a Certified Master Coach Practitioner (CMCP), trainer and facilitator, and a passionate public speaker who truly cares about the success of each and every single person he comes into contact with. You can reach him at [email protected].
