Would Knowing Your Purpose Help You In Your Career?
Are you lacking career confidence? Have you got to the stage in your career where what you’re doing is just not cutting it for you any more? I hear it a lot. You don’t feel fulfilled, you’re not excited or challenged, you’re still performing but you KNOW you’re not doing your best. The well of potential within you is largely untapped.
I coach women with these stories every day
These thoughts aren’t generally sudden. A sense of dissatisfaction and lack of career confidence can start, but it can reach a point where the quiet nag must be listened to. The trigger that makes you pay attention can be many things:
- A big birthday looming and you’re evaluating whether where you are is where you thought you’d be
- A new boss whose style you don’t gel with
- The company culture changing and becoming more toxic
- Not getting the promotion you were expecting
- Company cut-backs or restructuring
- Having children
- Children moving out
- The death of a loved one
Any of these life events can cause you to sit back and think about what it is you really want. Life is short. Do you really want to spend that much time miserable, moaning and lacking career confidence?
I’ve reached this point a couple of times in my career. The first time it was my 30th birthday made me sit up and think about where I was at (a distant memory now!). The second time, it was having children. The thing I realised I needed more than a big promotion, was to care about what I was doing. It had to mean something.
Purpose is the Ultimate Motivator for Career Confidence
What is your purpose? That can feel like the biggest and most daunting question, but it doesn’t mean you should hide from it. Maybe you just need to think about it in a different way.
Today I was coaching a woman who said her fear was that she’d become lazy. I know what she meant, but she was misinterpreting her lack of drive as laziness. She’s a high performer and gets great results even when she’s working below par. But that’s frustrating the hell out of her. Why? She knows she could give so much more.
Undeniably what’s missing is she doesn’t feel passionate about what she does, and there are many ways of achieving that.
Yes, you can answer ‘the purpose question’. And you can also consider other questions too.
Your purpose doesn’t need to be this earth-shattering thing that people bow down to you when they hear it. We’re not all meant to be Mother Theresa. What if your purpose is doing more of what you love? Or what you’re good at?
Here are a few pointers to get you thinking:
- What are you great at?
- Notice what do you feel energised doing.
- What do you get ‘lost in time’ doing?
- Think of the achievements (big and small) which you are proudest of.
- What is important to you?
- How can you be paid to do more of it?
- How could you use this in the job you’re in?
- Whose support might you need to make it happen?
- What can you do outside of work to use these strengths?
Maybe you’re ready to look for a new job that’s more in line with your answers, and that’s great.
But sometimes the easiest way to make a change can be by redesigning the job you’re in. Instead of putting roadblocks in your way, what if you ask yourself ‘how might I…?’
When you do more of what you love it can change everything
One of my biggest success stories of last year was with a client who came to me because she thought she wanted to change her job. We explored the options and spent time on her values, her purpose, and especially her vision for the future.
The result? She’s happy and so much more confident where she is because that has lead to redesigning her job to fit her brand. She’s performing brilliantly, she’s loving work, and of course she’s getting noticed! Sooner or later her next big promotion is on the way.
If you want to have a chat about how to turn your career and confidence around, why not email me to set up a call. Who knows where it might lead?!
