PTCC #002 Questions to Happy Work
This week I’ll reveal the questions to ask if you are stuck trying to work out what you want to do with your life.
In the mail 📧
Small ideas: Things to ponder.
Stories: Questions to ask.
People: Cool creators on the internet.
News: Hitting 5k.
Read time: 2 minutes
SMALL IDEAS
Self-worth is your ability to deliver on the promises you’ve made to yourself. The more promises you keep, the more you like yourself.
Effort is the reward. Working hard is a massive part of how much reward you derive from something.
Part-time creation is about longevity. You need to stick around long enough for people to care. That means your strategy should center around how to stick it out.
4 Questions to a Happier Career:
It’s a decision that can starve you from enjoying your life, one that takes up so much time and energy that it stops you from living your life to the fullest. I’ve been there.
When it comes to making a decision about work, I’ve found asking good questions is a great way to help. I call it the F.E.L.S (frustration, energy, lifestyle, strengths) framework.
1. (F) What frustrates you?
Often, deep emotion is the secret to a better life. Yet, we’re too busy spending time in the midst of our anger to spend any time thinking about what it might tell us.
Here’s a way to rethink things, if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t get worked up about it. The stuff that gets your back up and makes you want to bang your head against a wall is worth paying attention to. It might well be the answer to what you want to do with your life, ask yourself:
What do you come home moaning about?
What parts of your current job gets you frustrated?
When do you find you get most worked up during your day?
These questions can start To help you pinpoint what causes your frustration. Once you know what, you can ask yourself why. Asking yourself ‘why’ you are getting worked up about these things might well be the answer to what you want to do with your life.
For instance, let’s say you come home each night frustrated about work. Through reflection you realize that you are getting wound up because meetings at work aren’t managed well, you’re getting frustrated that you’re not getting through as much as you thought you could. It could be then worth exploring careers in project management or agile delivery management.
2. (E) What part of your day gives you energy?
The strange thing about people is that often we spend more time thinking about the good than the bad. It’s just human nature.
Getting frustrated about the things that go wrong over celebrating the things that go right.
Dwelling on the bad stuff rather than enjoying the good stuff.
Even though we’ve just talked about understanding frustrations, there is a lot to be said about reflecting on what in your day gives you energy. It’s about assessing where in your day you feel a sense of flow. There are some questions you might want to ask yourself:
What are the things you love to do?
When in your day do you forget you’ve been at work?
What activities do you tackle first because you enjoy them the most?
Reflecting on these questions can be just as helpful as reflecting on your frustrations. Once you know what activities you love to do, you can work towards optimizing for them.
Let’s say you love facilitating workshops, you can think about how you optimize your day for doing more of that or finding a job where you can do that more often than not.
3. (L) What is the lifestyle you want?
When it comes to choosing a career, one thing that always gets overlooked is a lifestyle. We’re busy chasing money, status, and progression that we forget to ask ‘at what cost?’
Lifestyle is about the life you want to lead. It’s not simply about where you want to work (although that is a factor) it’s about how you want to live. When talking about lifestyle, there are several factors to consider:
Expectations from senior management.
Working from home vs. time spent in the office.
Time in meetings vs. time spent on your own working.
Working on the weekends or being on call.
These are all factors that get missed off the list but make a huge difference to your life. If your main priority is your kids, and you choose a job that has high expectations from senior management and work on the weekends, it’s likely you’ll be making compromises.
These questions are important to answer, by choosing a job you are choosing a way of life. That’s massively important when it comes to living a happy life. If you don’t want high stress and long hours, don’t pick the job that dictates it.
4. (S) What are your strengths?
There is one factor that is so obvious sometimes people miss completely, that factor is this: you enjoy something more if you’re good at it. Think about it, think about which subjects you liked most at school, and then ask yourself which subjects you were good at. It’s like there is overlap.
The reality is, that we like being good at things. We like doing the things we’re good at because it makes us feel good. It makes us feel like we know what we’re doing and that we are competent.
With that in mind, it’s probably a good idea to start with your strengths when thinking about what career would be right for you, you can do that in a few ways:
Ask yourself ‘what am I good at?’
Ask your friends and family the same question.
Think about when you get the most compliments on your work.
Then write a list. Write a list of all the things you are good at. It can be anything from ‘good at chatting to people’ to ‘strong presenter’. It doesn’t have to be all work-focused, just think about in general, what are you good at.
Once you have that list, start to think about jobs that lend themselves well to that kind of work. If you’re a people person, maybe you want to work in learning and development. If you’re a detail-orientated person, maybe accountancy or an analyst role is right for you.
CREATORS
NEWS
This month I hit 5k on Medium after creating online for 850 days, it’s a huge milestone for me!
That’s all! Happy creating.