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Whether it’s time for something new or you currently love what you do,
change is an inevitable part of your career. You can take advantage of that
to help you fall (and stay!) in love with Monday morning.
Here are four ways you can harness change to feel more energized by the
work you do:
Change your work
My definition of passion is “The energy that comes from bringing more of
YOU into what you do.” If it’s time for a career change and you want to
create a new career that energizes and inspires you, first you need to know
where that energy comes from.
Here’s how I approach it. First make a list of the things that have lit you up
over time, work or play. Then pick one and dig into why you love it. As you
do this, you will see common themes emerge, recurring reasons why you
love what you love. I call those your Passion Factors.
When you’re doing work that has a high density of your Passion Factors,
you’re likely to feel energized and engaged. (Here’s an article that will take
a deeper look at this approach. And if you want to go deeper still, you could
try my e-book, The Occupational Adventure Guide).
Change what you do
Most jobs are far more malleable than people tend to think. Especially when
you add the variable of time, you might be surprised how much potential
there is to sculpt your job into something you find more energizing.
A great way to recognize potential changes to take look at your current job
through the lens of those Passion Factors I mentioned earlier.
Think of it as doing a passion audit on your job. Where is it a good match
with what energizes you? Where is it out of synch? You can also ask the
simple questions, “What do I love about my work? What do I dislike?”
Once you have that information, you can start changing what you do by
sculpting and scanning.
Sculpting is about looking for ways to build on what is currently energizing
(how can you bring more of it into the picture?) and eliminate or minimize
what you dislike. Scanning is about watching for opportunities to bring more
of what energizes you into the picture over time.
Sharing your Passion Factors with your boss will also help him/her recognize
what kinds of things to steer your direction.
Change how you do it
The third way of harnessing change is changing how you do your work.
Are there ways that you are currently doing things that don’t fit with how you
operate best? For example, maybe you find your focus scattered and
splintered as you bounce from this request to that e-mail to the other
meeting, and what you really need is more solid time to focus. When you
realize that, you might ask, “Is there any way I can build some focused,
unbroken time into the picture?”
Another way to explore how you do things is to ask, “How could I make this
more fun? More engaging?”
If you’re competitive, maybe you turn some repetitive task into
a competition with yourself. How quickly can you do it? How few mistakes
can you make? Or maybe you can make a habit of looking for ways to do
things more efficiently, or find different ways to get the same thing done, or
explore creative approaches to a task.
A quick and easy step is to add energizers to your day like exercise (even
just taking a brisk two-minute walk through the halls once an hour), inspiration
breaks (e.g., short inspiring video clips online), and breathing exercises.
Change your story
The final way to harness change is changing your story. Even if you have no
ability to make any of the changes I have been talking about, you always have
the potential to control what is going on between your ears.
You can change the meaning you assign to a situation. You can say, “Even
though this is a crap job, I’m learning some important lessons as a result.”
Or, “Yes, my boss is generally a jerk, but I’ve seen positive aspects in him,
and that’s what I’m going to focus on.” Even, “This isn’t the right job, and I’m
going to change when I get a chance, but it’s giving me the opportunity to
take care of my family and providing me an income while I work toward
something new.”
Changing your story isn’t just about shifting out of the negative. It can also
be a way to build more positive into your day. One excellent way to do this
is to focus on gratitude.
Exercising gratitude makes you more aware of the positive aspects of the
situation. It also primes the pump for you to notice more of the positive in the
future. The more you focus on what you’re thankful for, on what is good about
a situation, the more you notice.
Try this: At the end of every day, make it a habit of asking, “What was good
today?”
Changing your story to something more positive and productive won’t come
automatically. Don’t expect it to be a magic shift. Just keep practicing, and
you’ll notice a change. Watch for the negative stories you’re spinning, and
practice finding positive alternatives.
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Time for a career change? Launch it with
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams
