The 3 Steps to building a life-long aligned and fulfilling career

If you’re feeling disengaged and unfulfilled in your career, chances are you’re pretty frustrated. There’s nothing quite like it! Especially when you’re in the kind of career that you should love, the kind that’s perfect on paper and checks all of your boxes.

While you may be thinking to yourself, “What is wrong with me?! Why can’t I just feel happier at this job?”, give yourself a break. In my experience, this feeling is way more normal than we realize. I’ve built my business the last 6 years on it, and have dealt with countless clients who feel exactly like you do.

Once you’ve given yourself a break and accepted the situation for what it is, you can begin to move forward.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret, friend: if you’re feeling unfulfilled in a career that seems perfect, chances are that this professional path isn’t actually based on your desires. It’s based on the “right” thing, or the “successful” choice, or the expected choice…but not your actual wants and needs.

If you’re in this spot, you might be suffering from an “ownership issue”. You might feel like your career has “happened to you”, without making intentional choices along the way. And sitting in the passenger’s seat of your professional life is definitely not an empowered place to be! So, if you’re struggling with a lack of fulfillment because you’ve been basing your career off of the expectations of others, listen up! I’m going to share with you the 3 steps I take every client through when they’re going through the same thing.

1. Release the pressure of the “shoulds”

In my experience, this first step is the one that most people want to skip, but it’s actually the most essential. Before we can have a meaningful conversation about what you do want in your career, we have to release the pressure of what you “should” do. I think of it like this: if you have a teeny tiny voice in the back of your head saying, “Yes! I like ____ work! I want to do more of this!”, that’s your desire voice. But that voice can be pretty hard to hear if you have all these other little gremlin voices saying things like, “But you have to make sure you do X”, or “The only way to be successful is Y!”. You won’t be able to truly listen to yourself and your wants and desires before silencing those little gremlins. It’s too noisy! That’s why step 1 is all about identifying the voices and releasing the pressure. 

2. Clarify your desires

Once you’ve released that pressure, you can move on to figuring out what you DO want! With clients, we focus on clarifying 2 main types of desires for your career: you “what” and “how” needs. Your “what” needs are about what type of work would be fulfilling and engaging to you! Not the tasks, per se, but who you’re being when you’re feeling engaged at work. What can the tasks you enjoy tell us about who you are and what you need? This piece is huge, because it allows us to define who we are at our best, which can provide us a direction for our career (without limiting us to one single role). Do things which allow us to feel engaged and bring ourselves at our best to the table! Additionally, we clarify your “how” needs, which are about how you work best. These are the logistic-y things to spell out, like expectations about pay, company culture, management style, etc.

3. Determine what that means for your career

Once we’ve clarified what you actually want and need, then we can figure out what this means for your career! What’s not working currently? Where are there gaps between your needs and reality? Are there ways that you can bridge that gap? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

These 3 steps are the backbone of my work for the last 6 years, and in my experience, they’re what you need to move from “this is OK, but is it what I want to do forever?” to feeling more engaged and fulfilled by your work.

If you want to learn more about these steps, I have good news for you! I have an entire free workshop which walks through these 3 steps in more detail! The 3 Steps to Building a Lifelong Aligned and Fulfilling Career. So if you’re ready to get in touch with yourself and figure out what would actually make you happy, go grab a seat now. 

Remember, while you might be special and unique and wonderful, this fear and frustration you’re feeling right now…well, it’s not as unique as you are. ;)

You’re in good company, and if you need a process to figure these things out, I’ve got you covered!

P.S. Go snag your seat for my workshop now, The 3 Steps to Building a Lifelong Aligned and Fulfilling Career!