What is career fulfillment anyways?
There’s a lot of talk about career fulfillment these days, but to be honest, not everyone knows what it is. Some people have the wrong idea about career fulfillment all together, and it’s leading them down a frustrating path. So, if you’re wondering why this is such a hot topic in the work world at the moment, read on…
Career fulfillment has become a pretty important topic for a lot of employees over the last 5-10 years. Whether it’s due to the 2008 recession, the 2020 global pandemic, or to Millennials entering the workforce and pushing back against our Boomer parents’ ideologies, we’ve certainly seen a shift. While career fulfillment has become the new objective, though, as a coach who works with clients to build more fulfilling careers, I’ve noticed that a lot of people are misunderstanding this topic. Before I can explain what career fulfillment means in my experience (and my clients), I think it’s important to explain what it DOES NOT mean. Here are a few things that career fulfillment is not:
1. Career fulfillment is NOT always about changing the world
There’s often an assumption that in order to feel fulfilled by your work, you need to do something altruistic. You need to give back in some way, improving the lives of others. While that CAN be true for some people, this is not the case for everyone. There are many people who are deeply fulfilled by their work without solving world hunger.
2. Career fulfillment is NOT necessarily a nonprofit organization
In the same vein as my point above, that also means that you do not need to work at a nonprofit in order to feel fulfilled. Again, this can be true for some people, but it is not true for everyone. Each individual has a different set of needs and priorities. For some folks, working at a non-profit is high on the list and is essential to them. For others...not so much. Money is not inherently tied to fulfillment (nor is it inherently opposite).
3. Career fulfillment is NOT work that is always fun
This is where we address the dreaded, “love what you do and never work a day in your life” trope. As a coach who has dedicated myself to the pursuit of more fulfilling careers for all of my clients, I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate this quote. Unfortunately, this saying has gotten itself so embedded into American society that it seems impossible to get rid of. As a result, folks come to me and say, “Chris, XYZ job can’t be fulfilling, because this one element of it sounds pretty painful” (or something like that). It simply is not true that fulfilling work = always fun. A more accurate statement, in my opinion, is “love what you do and the hard days are worth it”. There will be hard days, without a doubt, but we are looking for the kind of job where bearing the hard days is worthwhile.
So, working backwards from those examples of what career fulfillment is NOT, I’m going to take a stab at trying to capture what career fulfillment IS.
To me, career fulfillment is the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from doing work that’s aligned with your specific set of needs, skills, and values. It’s the comfort and sense of certainty that you are doing the right things. And the tenants that lead to fulfillment vary from person to person.
So… Are you now wondering how YOU can find career fulfillment?
I could do many more posts about this (and I probably will), but the short version for this context is: if this idea of career fulfillment sounds appealing and you’re eager to chase it down for yourself, you have to start by clarifying your specific set of career needs. Career fulfillment does not come from what we “should” be doing - in fact, that’s the quickest path towards dissatisfaction. Career needs, values, and skills vary from person to person, so in order to seek out career fulfillment, you need to start by defining yours.
If that feels daunting, this is exactly what I do with clients, and I’m happy to help. You can learn more about how I serve clients here, about 2/3 down the page. My goal is to help hold peoples’ hands through this process, so they can release the pressure of what they “should” be doing, and instead figure out what they actually want to do. That is how you build a career that you are fulfilled and engaged by.
Let’s get started, y’all! I can’t wait to see what kind of things you create on your road to career fulfillment.
