Photo by RF._.studio
What does my job mean to me? Where is my career path headed? What is a career, anyway?
What should my career bring to my life? What occupation is the best for me? What is the difference between a job and a career?
While things are rapidly changing in the workplace, up until March of 2020, we had been navigating more than a decade of what we’re going to call “all-inclusive jobs.” These are the jobs and the offices that come loaded with every type of milk in the kitchen, infinite varieties of snacks, nightly happy hours, an office gym, and the list goes on.
The intentions might have started from a good place, but it got… a little weird. It started to seem like you were never supposed to go home because work had everything—even literal pods where you could nap.
Employees might not gripe about working 90-hour weeks when surrounded by their best friends, 24-hour access to handcrafted lattes, and a dry cleaning stipend.
So what gives?
Where the Big Career Development Push Starts
The push to have pointed career goals starts long before you enter an office or log into a Zoom meeting.
Your inadvertent career planning begins when a career counselor visits your school to tell you what you "should" be according to your talents—even though you're only in third grade.
It's the push to get the bachelor's degree, then the graduate degree—and to be chasing your life's work from day one. Every graduation is an invitation to keep it moving up, up, and up!
The overall message? Your life is spent chasing down the dream job. Once you get "there," the feeling can be...less than fulfilling. But, if you want to keep climbing that career ladder, you need to work that full-time, plus overtime.
Here's a Reminder
Pretty much any way you slice it, you will spend a significant amount of time at work or working, but that doesn't mean work = life. In fact, your life goes on once you leave the office, once you log off for the day. Ahem, please make sure that you are logging off. Career success can be achieved without completely burning yourself out.
This sort of conditioning isn’t limited to the physical office, either. Many of us have read a job description that sounded nice upon the first read, but then seemed a little "off," like job descriptions that use “red flag” phrases like “we’re a tight-knit family.”
Perks are nice, but they’re also a little tricky. This mentality seeps into everything you do. After a while, you might realize that your job has become your everything without your knowledge.
Yes, your job is important. Yes, your career is important. Yes, you should be empowered to go after that promotion, that leadership role, and that opportunity. However, keep in mind that your work is not everything.
You are still in charge of your own future.
Examples of What Your Career Can Be
Before we dive into five roles we think it's dangerous for your job to play in your life, let's talk about what your job can (and should!) be.
- A source of monetary benefits
- A position that allows you to keep your own basic life values
- Something that allows you to pursue your passions for the greater good (i.e., nonprofit work, social change, charity endeavors)
- Somewhere that you find some fulfillment (but not all of it!)
- A place where you work on your competencies and learn new skills
- Work and tasks that give you personal satisfaction; that make you feel proud of you
- Something that fits into whatever phase of life you're currently navigating (i.e., recent college grad, new parent, late-career)
- Something that allows for risk-taking, but maybe isn't inherently risky (unless that's your thing!)
- Something that can change over time, allowing you to open yourself to unexpected career transitions
Here’s what your job shouldn’t be—and how to maintain a healthy balance between your work life and your life life.
Your Career Is Not Your Identity
We’re here as your friends to tell you that your career is not your identity. Remember that significant other you had in high school or college; the one you couldn’t live without? When that person no longer served you, your life crumbled. All of a sudden, you realized that you lost yourself completely inside that person.
You were left to rebuild yourself from the ground up. When we make the mistake of assigning an impossibly high value to someone or something, we miss out.
Wrapping your identity around a singular pillar is never a good idea. If your job dictates who you are, then who are you when “it” isn’t around anymore?
Your career or your job is not your identity—it's part of the routine of your life, right now. You existed before it, you exist now, and you will exist after any job.
Every job is not “out” to claim your identity, but when entering any serious commitments (yes, including romantic relationships and contractual jobs), consider creating a short list of what makes you exactly who you are.
Here are some ideas:
- The most important three things in my life are:
- A memory that makes me smile is:
- A quote or song lyric that inspires me:
- A piece of advice that has always stuck with me:
- The last time I really, truly belly-laughed + why:
- I want to be remembered for this admirable trait in myself:
- My non-negotiables are:
- Something I have achieved that makes me proud:
- One powerful word to describe me:
Your Career Is Not Your "Family"
The next time you are job searching, do a quick word search in each job description. If the word “family” is in the job description, run for the hills.
We wholeheartedly believe in having a precious chosen family. Some of our greatest family members don’t share an ounce of the same blood. However, you should choose your chosen family; they shouldn’t choose you. Moreover, you probably don’t want to be on your family’s payroll before you even know them.
In theory, it would be nice to think of your coworkers as a family, but think back to the last big fight you got into with your real sister. The workplace doesn’t need that sort of energy—and there aren’t enough HR managers in the world to handle that sort of fight in the middle of a project.
Your coworkers and your boss are important people in your life. Respect them and command respect from them. Communicate your values, maintain your boundaries, and share your creativity with them. If you're lucky, you might pick up a few lifelong friends in the workplace. If not, respectful relationships at work are extremely valuable as they are.
Your Career Is Not Your Entire Life
There’s a familiar trope in many 1990s television shows and movies where the father figure in a family becomes so wrapped up in “the job” that he forgets about everything else. Consequently, he either loses “it all” or has a reckoning where he figures out what’s important. Cue the sappy credits.
Especially when you reach a goal or a position in your career, it can become a larger-than-life beast in your mind. Here’s the thing, though: your job or your career should never be your entire life. Make lifelong goals, but open yourself to the possibility of them morphing into something unexpected—and maybe even better.
The pursuit of a lifelong ambition is great, but when the goal becomes too singular, it cancels out everything beautiful growing around it.
If you forgot how to speak without using your company-specific jargon, if you haven’t even opened your personal email in months, and if you’ve forgotten the sound of your mother’s voice, you are approaching mid-1990s Tim Allen in every movie status.
Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe the loss of self when boundaries cease to exist. When you become too enmeshed with your career, you lose your connection with virtually everything and everyone outside of work.
When you’re working toward a specific goal, pay grade, or position, you might not realize you are enmeshing yourself until it’s too late. Remember that list we made earlier? See if you can revisit that on a weekly or monthly basis. It’s okay if it changes a little bit, but if it becomes entirely job-focused, you’re likely missing out.
Try this new list to determine whether or not you are letting work swallow your entire life:
- When was the last time I did something for fun? Did I enjoy it?
- Who are my best friends? When is the last time I saw or spoke to them?
- How are my relationships at home?
- What are my hobbies outside of work?
- When is the last time I spent more than two waking hours without thinking about work?
Your Career Is Not Your Worth Nor Your Confidence
We hear stories about careers being tied up in confidence or self-worth all too often and it breaks our hearts.
Some of your confidence is always going to be tied to your work and that’s good! When you’re proud of your work, you tend to be better at it. When you feel confident and proud, you’re likely to make fewer mistakes, tap into more creativity, and find new ways of solving problems.
It’s when too much of your confidence and self-worth is tied up in work where things get hairy. Remember that college significant other we spoke about earlier? When you’re too tied up in your job or your career, your job has the power and potential to break your heart. Don’t let it.
This is easy advice to give but hard advice to follow, but here it goes. When you make a mistake at work, don’t let it pilfer from your confidence reserve. Instead, learn from mistakes. Own them, dissect them, and communicate your game plan for avoiding them in the future.
If an individual at work—like your boss—is chipping away at your self-worth, try communicating that to your boss. While some bosses are jerks, you might be surprised to find out that you can communicate clearly to change your own outcome.
Finally, if your job is killing your self-worth, conduct an honest audit. Sure, the job looks awesome on paper. Your friends constantly tell you they would *kill* for your job, but—in reality—it’s slowly killing you.
Don’t be afraid of letting go of the glossy-looking job in favor of the good-enough job that treats you well.
Your Career Isn't Your Happiness
We have one last piece of advice that is, once again, easy to give.
Don’t tie your happiness to your job or to any one thing. There’s a quote by writer Armistead Maupin that says, “You can have a hot job, a hot apartment, and a hot lover—but you can't have all three at the same time.”
Once you’re done giggling at the use of the word “hot,” we do think this is valuable advice. Don’t tie your happiness to one thing—or even three things. In this noisy world, it is nearly impossible to separate what you want from what you think you should have. Career exploration is most exciting when it's actually exploratory.
When you don’t have the time or energy to give yourself the space to determine what actually matters to you (not your parents, not your partner, not your oldest frenemy), you’ll get bogged down in what’s “supposed” to make you happy.
Our advice? Find your happiness offline. Look to your childhood, your closest friends, your favorite books, and everything you had before a career was even on the horizon.
In Conclusion
Finally, finding happiness or meaning in your career is not a bad thing! However, putting too much of yourself into your job puts you at high risk of burnout, disappointment, or even identity crisis.
Career decision-making is not one decision that is cast in stone. Excitingly enough, it can be a ton of decisions, for long- and short-term. It can be taking different jobs that form into something that was once amorphous and undefined.
It's a lifelong process that can include those bottom-of-the-ladder jobs, bad bosses, part-time positions, new career options, and maybe even a few spiritual endeavors sprinkled in. Pretty exciting, huh?
Take time to build your happiness, your meaning, and your self-worth upon your own values. By defining and remaining true to your values, your career will naturally progress in a healthy and balanced way.
