Find something that matches your strengths – the rest will fall into place
Many of us struggle to find motivation and joy in their day-to-day work. We all know and read those studies that are regularly published where a large group of people does not truly identify themselves with their jobs and mainly do them for the money and financial security. This is a pretty depressing picture, as the questions arises how much more productive and greater could we be, and innovation could be delivered if all of us actually were highly motivated in their day-to-day jobs? The opportunity would be immense. So, the question is how do we determine what the ideal job is for us and then make changes to get as close to that as possible?
First, it is too easy here to just play the blame game. Many of us blame external circumstances for our own demotivation. This can be the general work environment or even our manager or colleagues we work with. However, this is just too easy, as we need to understand that very often what makes us depressed with our jobs is coming from within us and very rarely solely has something do so with external factors or the external work environment. A second realization then must be that change has to come from within us. We have our destiny in our own hands, and therefore only we can actively improve the situation by making conscious choices towards our happiness. The problem is, many people would agree to this, but not many workers live by this. It is so much easier to blame others around us. Often however, this decreases our motivation and happiness even more.
Once we realize that only we can bring about long-term change, the question has to be what our strengths are. What are we good at? What do we really enjoy? This can even be related to something we used to do in our childhood, or it can also be a more recent activity we really were passionate about. We need to be self-reflective to get to know our strengths, but it is highly recommended to spend a lot of time on this as these reflections will determine if we enjoy what we work as or not. Now you, might argue not everyone has the luxury of choice here – as some people just need to make a living. However, you can adjust any job to be more compliant with your strengths, whatever it is.
For example, if you are a people person, a job in customer service might be a good choice. If you are not, you could still work in a hotel, but maybe not in customer service but in administration. There are multiple facets and task of each job and position, and the key is to find the one that matches your strengths in the best possible way. Strengths come naturally to you, and you do not need a lot of effort to complete tasks successfully that match your strengths.
The other beauty in this is, once you found something that matches your core character traits and abilities, the money and success will come automatically. Many people do not believe this and challenge this. However, it is true. Think about it, those skills hat come to you naturally, you will easily outperform others who might not have those skills as their core strengths and must go through a lot of effort to learn and optimize what comes to you naturally. You will quickly therefore climb to the top which usually is associated with more pay and career success. It therefore all start again with your strengths.
To conclude, more and more people get stressed with their work and loose motivation. What they don’t realize is that a) the change has to come from within them and b) ideally, they would focus their work on something they have as a natural strength. The beauty is, once they do this, the money and the success will come automatically regardless of what they do. So find your strengths and match them to your job - it will be very rewarding.
