Being able to combine your passions and strengths can benefit your career greatly in terms of fulfillment. Feeling fulfilled with your career can lead to overall satisfaction and happiness from your job. Understanding how to achieve this can help you find a job you enjoy and improve your efficiency and performance in it. In this article, we discuss what career fulfillment is and eight tips you can use to find it.
Recommended
What is career fulfillment?
Career fulfillment is a feeling you earn when you find a career that balances your interests and your skills. Components that make up your career fulfillment may include doing what you enjoy, making a difference, and creating meaningful work. By ensuring your work involves something you enjoy and excel in, you can feel more motivated to perform well.
You can make a difference in your career by doing a job that helps other people, such as working for a nonprofit organization or for a company that provides public service. For example, you may achieve this while working at a place that has helped you in your life, such as at a hospital, that makes you feel like you’re giving back. Additionally, creating meaningful work can increase personal fulfillment because you’re doing tasks that have meaning to you and make you feel good about yourself.
8 tips for finding career fulfillment
Here’s a list of eight tips you can use to find career fulfillment:
1. Find a career that aligns with your values
Values are ideas and beliefs you find important in your personal and professional life. Once you’ve considered what your values are, try to determine how they can fit into your professional role. Finding a career that aligns with your values can help you feel happier in your position. There are three broad categories for work values:
-
Intrinsic: These values are intangible items that motivate and excite you, such as giving back to your community.
-
Extrinsic: These values are tangible items, which can include rewards you can earn from your employer, such as a pay increase or being a part of a team.
-
Lifestyle: You derive lifestyle values from your career based on what you can afford and what your job can provide you. This can include if you want to live in a city or have time to travel.
For example, if you want to live in a city while working for a company that allows you to volunteer, those are the values you can search for when looking for a job. When you find a job that fulfills these values, your career satisfaction and happiness may increase.
2. Create a list of things you enjoy
If you’re unsure how to search for career fulfillment, creating a list of interests you enjoy can help you find a career you want. Having a job where you’re interested in the tasks and daily routines can keep you motivated and increase your happiness. Here are a few ways you can look for your interests in a career:
-
What are parts of your day you enjoy?
-
What subjects do you like to talk about or write about?
-
Where are your strengths in your skill set?
-
What do you like to do with your time outside of work?
Once you create your list, consider writing what potential careers involve all or most of your list. You then can research careers that fit your interests and sound interesting to you.
3. Define a personal mission statement for yourself
A personal mission statement is a written or verbal tool you can use to define who you are as a person and your goals. It explains how you plan to achieve your objectives and why they matter to you. Try to include the following in your mission statement:
-
Your interests and skills
-
Your personality traits
-
Your values and goals
It can benefit you to create a mission statement because it helps you define your long-term goals and keeps you on schedule to achieve them. After creating your statement, you might find it helpful to keep it where you can see it every day to remind you what you’re working toward. An example of a personal mission statement is, “I want to use my gift of vulnerability as a writer to move and inspire other people with my words.” These can help you find career fulfillment because they define what you want to achieve in life, including your job.
4. Maintain positive relationships in your network
Maintaining a positive relationship with your network may help you learn about new career opportunities. You can share ideas you have about seeking career fulfillment with the people in your network and ask whether they have advice for you. You can gain more confidence in yourself and your skills when you connect with people who have similar interests and positions as you because you can learn from them and their experiences. Here are some ways you can maintain a positive relationship with your network:
-
Connect with them online using professional social networking sites
-
Host events or small meetings to converse with your network
-
Attend networking events to expand your relationships
-
Express your gratitude to them
-
Ask them if there’s anything you can do for them
5. Set goals to work on each day
You can set small goals to work on each day to reach career fulfillment. If you’re working toward getting a promotion that can give you more career satisfaction, it might be helpful for you to work on a new skill every day to help you earn it. For example, if you’re pursuing education, that’s something you can include as small goals in your career path. Consider the following outline when setting everyday goals:
-
Write your goals out the night before or early in the morning
-
Keep your list short with about two to four goals
-
Allow extra time in your schedule for any challenges that may arise
-
Determine how you plan to measure your progress or success in your goals
-
Set deadlines throughout your day when you’d like to complete a goal
6. Accept new opportunities
Accepting new opportunities in your life may lead to career fulfillment because it can help you experience new things and grow your interests. If you agree to do a task or job you normally wouldn’t, it may develop a new passion or value you didn’t know you had.
It’s also beneficial to accept new opportunities for yourself because it can allow you to your time to discover career goals and values that can improve your overall happiness and job satisfaction. New challenges can help with career fulfillment because you might find out you excel at creating solutions, which can lead to new interests or values you can implement into your career.
7. Consider working for yourself
Starting your own business may lead to an increase in your career fulfillment. To have your own business in which you’re doing something you’re passionate about can motivate you to work harder to accomplish your goals. Doing this in your own business can create more joy in your life by allowing you to achieve more personal goals. Working for yourself also may allow for more flexibility in your life, such as choosing the hours and days you work to complete your tasks.
8. Choose a career you’re good at and enjoy
You can earn career fulfillment if you find a position where you can use your strengths and do something you enjoy, which can increase your job satisfaction. Having success in your job can build your confidence and lead to better positions and pay, which can be important for career fulfillment. Here are a few ways you can choose a career you’re good at and enjoy:
-
Remember the interests you had when you were a child
-
Ask your friends and family what they think you excel at
-
Research college course catalogs online for topics that sound interesting to you
-
Think about who you admire professionally and think about what they do
-
Ask yourself what you think you’re good at and also enjoy doing
-
Speak with a career counselor
-
Take an online career test to see where your interests are useful
I hope you find this article helpful.
