What is Career Fulfillment and How to Create it for Yourself
Over the last few years, it has become clear that the desire to find fulfillment and meaning in our careers is more important than ever. There’s a steady increase in people who want purpose in their work, rather than just a job that pays the bills, especially among millennials and Gen Z.
One study found that 9 out of 10 Americans would trade compensation for more meaning at work.
Another study tells us that 94% of millennials want to use their skills to benefit a cause.
So meaning and fulfillment are incredibly important , but what does it look like? And how can you create it in your career? Let’s look to Positive Psychology to find out.
The Psychology behind Fulfillment
The best way to explain how to find fulfillment and meaning in work is to look at Positive Psychology.
Positive Psychology can be summarized as “ the scientific study of what makes life most worth living”.
So what makes life most worth living?
Positive psychology offers a theory called PERMA. It says that you can find more meaning and fulfillment in your daily life by focusing on 5 key elements: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement.
P – Positive Emotions: A part of your well-being is enjoying yourself in the moment and feeling positive emotions, including: hope, interest, joy, love, contentment, and gratitude. Increasing your positive emotions can help your physical and mental wellbeing throughout your life and career.
E – Engagement: Also known as “ flow”: when you’re so engaged and absorbed in a task that you enjoy and excel at, that you lose track of time.
R – (Positive) Relationships: Humans are social creatures, and we rely on connections with others to thrive (whether we like it or not). These relationships can come from our family, friends, coworkers, or our community at large. Having deep, meaningful relationships can even help you to live longer!
M – Meaning: When you dedicate yourself to a cause or something bigger than yourself, you experience meaning and a larger sense of purpose Meaning helps you to make sense of your life and focus on what is truly important, especially when facing life’s inevitable challenges.
A – Accomplishment / Achievement: You thrive when you are succeeding, achieving your goals, and bettering yourself; whether at work or at home.
These 5 elements provide a structure for what makes up fulfillment in life and career.
But what does it really look like to feel fulfilled in your career? What is career fulfillment specifically?
So what is Career Fulfillment?
A big misconception people have about career fulfillment is believing that a specific job title, working for the largest company, or having the highest salary will bring them fulfillment. But this is not necessarily true; the next job isn’t going to fix all your problems.
Many believe that fulfillment comes from external factors, but the truth is that it comes from within.
Fulfillment comes from understanding your own definition based on what is important to you. In other words, fulfillment is subjective!
What makes you feel fulfilled is based on your past experiences, values, and desires for your future. This is why it’s important to understand who you are and what’s important to you — this will inform how you can feel fulfilled in your career.
For example, to me, Career Fulfillment is aligning my work to who I am as a person: what contribution I want to make, what work is aligned with my lifestyle, values, strengths, and mission, and work that allows me to take care of myself.
So, now that you know that finding fulfillment in your life and work is subjective, you can start to create it!
Creating Fulfillment in your Career
So how can you find fulfillment in your work?
You can use PERMA as your blueprint to fulfillment. The very first step in your career fulfillment journey is taking inventory of which PERMA components you already have vs which ones are lacking in your career.
Answer the following questions to reflect on your career currently:
P- Positive Emotions-
What are the typical emotions and feelings you have on a day-to-day basis at work?
Are your typical emotions more positive, such as contentment, joy, excitement, challenge, interest? Or more negative emotions such as frustration, annoyance, resentment?. (Note: This isn’t to say when you’re fulfilled in your career you won’t still feel negative emotions, but think about 70%-80% of the time, how do you feel?)
E-Engagement-
Do you feel engaged in the tasks you do more often than not?
Do you get so in the zone at work that you lose track of time?
R-(Positive) Relationships-
Do you have a supportive team and manager that helps you grow?
Do you feel safe bringing your full self to work?
M-Meaning-
Do you have a sense of meaning in your work?
Can you connect to something bigger than yourself?
A-Accomplishments-
Are you achieving goals, challenging yourself, and accomplishing things that are important to you?
Take some time to journal and reflect about your current circumstances. It will also be helpful to complete this exercise and reflect on your past jobs as well.
The FIRST step into finding work you love, and creating a career that is fulfilling to you, is to pause and reflect on where you are so you can plan on where you want to go.
If you’re looking to go even deeper, feel free to try out an exercise I have for you here.
Feel free to comment or send me a message and let me know your own thoughts on this!
