Your Values And Your Work

Many people have asked why I believe personal values play such an important role they are selecting a new job or career path. To answer this question, it may help to take a look at what we mean by values. Your values are those things that matter most to you in life.

Examples of different things you might value would include family, friendships, achievement, money, freedom, variety, security, and prestige. Every person on this planet has values, and these values differ from one person to another.

Understanding your values is important from a career perspective, because what is expected or required of you at work can often conflict with what you value most. If you place a high value on variety, and enjoy doing different tasks on a regular basis, you might become frustrated working on an assembly line.

Likewise, if you value security and stability, you might want to think twice before setting-out on a career path as an independent consultant. Keep in mind that you may have values that differ between your personal life and your professional life.

Some people enjoy a great deal of variety in their free time (i.e. fishing, gardening, and reading), but desire a job that doesn’t change much in terms of form or function. Others might prefer just the opposite… a job with a lot of variety, but a simple and consistent personal life.

These examples illustrate why it is so important to have a clear understanding of your own personal values, and how they relate to your work. Most jobs are functional in nature, not based on or designed around personal values. Organizations simply have roles that need to be filled and tasks that need to be accomplished.

It is up to you to determine whether or not the role(s) you play at work are in alignment with your values. It is unfortunate that many people are willing to ignore or overlook their values as part of the job-search process. Doing so ultimately leads to frustration and disappointment with your professional life.

Whether you are currently looking for work, or already have a job, it is important to go through the exercise of identifying your values. Having a list (written or mental) of what matters most to you in life will give you a basis for making good, long-term decisions in what can be a confusing, ever-changing world.

While work is important, and we all bear the responsibility of living a productive life, I encourage you to hold dear to your values. Far too many people have sacrificed their values in the name of their work, and are filled with regret later on in life.

Someone once suggested that we should design our work around our lives, rather than our lives around our work. This sounds like pretty good advice to me.

~ Dave

Finding Your Ideal Job

How can you know if your current career or job is where you are most likely to find the professional success you desire?

Answering this question is where the Authentic Vocation Model can be very useful. This model consists of eight core elements, each of which encompasses a different aspect of any given profession.

The first element – Life Purpose - is the topic of this post. Having a clear understanding of your life purpose is a key starting point in finding your Authentic Vocation. If the term “life purpose” seems a little too hard to get a hold of, you might think in terms of “core theme” or your “personal mission.”

Determining your life purpose is not mandatory for enjoying your work or being successful at your job. It will, however, give you a better sense of what you want to accomplish with your life, which in turn may help you determine what career path will be most rewarding in the long run.

Consider the following examples….

On your next vacation, you might decide to grab your wallet, your toothbrush, a change of clothes, and head-out on the open-highway… with no particular destination in mind. You could stop at various sites along the way, enjoy the people and the food, and have a good time overall. There would be nothing wrong with a vacation that had no specific destination at the outset, it would be more like what we might call an adventure.

As an alternative, you might decide that you want to spend time at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. You grab your map and determine your route, and which cities you’ll pass through along the way. Because you know your budget and your time-frame, you are able to plan which hotels you’ll stay in, how far you’ll travel each day, and what attractions you want to visit while you’re there.

While knowing your destination (as in the second example) isn’t required in order to have a fun vacation, it does give you a better sense of where you’re headed, and what you want to accomplish along the way.

Knowing your life purpose allows you to approach your career path with a similar type of thinking. By knowing what you want to accomplish with your life, you can start looking for what types of work will allow you to do so most effectively.

If your purpose in life is to help find a cure for cancer, pursuing a career in sports-marketing probably won’t give you a lasting sense of fulfillment. You might have a fun time meeting athletes and selling team-memorabilia, but it won’t do much to fulfill that internal desire to help the sick.

My favorite quote that helps describe exactly what it means to find your life purpose comes from the book, “How To Find Your Mission In Life,” by Richard Nelson Bolles:

“To exercise that talent which you particularly came to earth to use… in those places or settings which God has caused to appeal to you the most… and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.”

Take some time and think about why you’re here and what you most want to accomplish in life. Then ask yourself if your current line of work work is helping you get closer to making that come true.

~ Dave