If you are looking for alternative job options, it's important to arm yourself with information about what you really want from your job. Failure to do this could result in you drifting into an unsuitable career and feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled.
Understanding your values
Your values are the beliefs and feelings that are central to the quality of your life. For example, if you long to help others, it's unlikely that you would be happy participating in the cut and thrust of the money markets. And if a dazzling, high-earning career is your priority, don't aim for a modest job in a quiet backwater.
Just think how satisfying your life could be if you were able to pursue a career which allowed you to live out your personal values!
Use this list to trigger your thoughts and to help you decide what your personal values are.
Job security
Good working conditions
Being treated with respect and consideration
Opportunities for learning new skills
The expectation of promotion and advancement
Earning enough to live well
Achieving something worthwhile
Being independent and taking responsibility
Having personal power and influence
A sense of belonging and being accepted
Helping others
Being highly regarded and admired.
Make a note of the three values that are the most important, and the three that are the least.
Are your values being met?
One way of looking at your values is to think of them as an expression of your needs. Your values change over time because the things you require from your career are constantly shifting. When you first start out, money and security are often most important, whereas status and independence may become more of a priority later on.
It's therefore useful to keep revisiting your values to find out how they have changed – and whether or not they are still being met.
Look at your job in relation to the values that you have identified as being most important and least important:
Are there any values that you identified as important which do not feature in the work you do now?
Do any of your 'least important' values feature in what you do now?
Can you think of any job or career that would satisfy the values you have identified?
When you are searching for a new job, your list of values will be a vital aid in helping you to choose the best ones to apply for.
By clarifying the things that really matter to you, you may be able to find better ways of realising them – both in your job and in your life outside work. And by identifying options that match your values, you will invest more passionately in your job and become more successful at what you do.
