Financial stability and career fulfillment are not just niceties, they’re the bedrock of our well-being, influencing our security, freedom, and pursuit of dreams. Just as we prioritize physical and mental health check-ups, it’s crucial to evaluate our financial and career wellness. Are we meeting savings goals? Investing wisely? Advancing professionally?
In today’s rapidly changing job market, cultivating career fulfillment is more crucial than ever. With industries evolving and job roles disappearing or transforming, it’s important to navigate these uncertain times with a clear head and a resilient mindset. This blog explores three key tactics to foster career fulfillment: exploring your values, using listening as a tool for effective storytelling, and crafting your own story to overcome career hurdles.
Exploring Your Values
Personal values are the guiding principles that shape our decisions and actions. In the context of a career, they are the bedrock upon which job satisfaction and fulfillment rest. To identify your values, ask yourself:
- What aspects of work are most satisfying to me?
- When have I felt most proud of my work?
- What are some memories of my successes or accomplishments?
Step back and take a look at your answers. What dots can you connect? Where are the common denominators? Do you see a love of creativity? Collaboration? Or maybe there is a gravitation towards a more singular focus or independent-type of work. These are just some of the many possibilities you may find! Aligning your career with these identified values can lead to more meaningful and satisfying job roles.
Listening as a Tool for Effective Storytelling
Effective storytelling in a career context isn’t just about speaking; it’s also about listening. By actively listening to industry trends, feedback from colleagues, and even our inner dialogue, we can better understand where our career path should lead. However, more of us have obstacles to fully listening—even (and especially!) to ourselves.
What do we mean by obstacles to listening?
Let’s start by recognizing that the reciprocal relationship between listening and telling highlights their mutual influence and equal importance. In its truest form, listening is an expression of valuing our conversation partner’s intellect. This even holds true when you are listening to yourself!
So, ask yourself, “what obstacles to listening are getting in my way?” There are physical obstacles (our body’s physical needs), external obstacles (our senses), internal obstacles (our feelings and emotions), psychological (our judgements and opinions), and relational (the relationship we have with the speaker). First, we have to identify our obstacles to listening; then we can release them.
Once you have released your obstacles to listening and can really listen to yourself, you can craft a career story that resonates with both your aspirations and the market’s needs.
Crafting Your Own Story
In times of uncertainty, we get caught up in trying to guess what others may need or want from us. The problem with trying to guess what others need or want from you is that it’s external and you’ll be preoccupied with what you think they like, dislike, need, don’t need, etc. These are distractions at best and will keep you from being your most present, creative self. So, how do you represent who you are when you’re in the middle of a big change? You start with you.
The experiences that emerge from listening to yourself create fertile ground for excavating, crafting, and presenting authentic stories. Through a device we call the “What Happened Camera,” in Narativ’s Listening & Storytelling Method, we help you separate facts from feelings. This opens up the door to you being able to engage with people through raw description of actions rather than layering on your interpretation of the experience.
It’s the difference between saying, “I faced my boss and told him I quit, holding my trembling hands together” and “I was so scared of confronting my boss, but I was so proud when I did.” The first statement paints a much more vivid and experiential picture than the second.
Cultivating Fulfillment Despite the Certainty of Uncertainty
Developing career fulfillment is about aligning your personal values with your professional life, listening to the world within you to inform your career story, and actively crafting your authentic story to overcome challenges. One thing is for sure—uncertainty will always be there riding alongside its good pal, change. But by embracing and employing these tactics, you can navigate the uncertainties of the job market—and beyond—with confidence and purpose.
