Want a more fulfilling career?

The starting point is to build your self-awareness. Awareness of your career values, your strengths, what gives you flow, who you surround yourself with, and where you’re heading. The following questions can help you begin to deepen your understanding of your career, where you have gaps and where you might want to make changes.

Know your Values – Are you working in a job that reflects what’s important to you in life?

“Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose” – Helen Keller

• What’s important to you in a career?
• What do you want your career to bring you?
• How do you want work to make you feel?
• Do you get this today?

Know your Strengths – Do you get chance to use your strengths every day at work?

“Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness” – Bertrand Russell

• What are you good at?
• What do others admire in you? Ask them!
• What do you take for granted that is actually a special skill?

Know your Flow – Is there joy in your job?

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful” – Albert Schweizer

• What activities make you lose track of time?
• What are you naturally drawn towards?
• What gives you energy in your work?

Know your Stakeholders – Are you connected to inspiring, supportive people?

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world” – John Muir

• Who are your key mentors and advisors?
• Who influences you in a positive way?
• Who opens doors for you?
• Who do you need to know that you don’t already?

Know your Path – Do you proactively define your career path, for now and for the future?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else” – Lawrence J Peter

• What are you working towards?
• What do you need to prioritise to keep you on track?
• What can/must you let go of?

So don’t get swept along by your career as if on a kind of work treadmill, going through the motions with no pause to consider if you’re spending those 40+ hours a week on what you really want. Instead take action and use these questions to guide you towards a more fulfilling career choice.