Contrary to popular belief, most people are not unhappy in their jobs. A recent poll conducted by a well known research agency revealed 41% of Americans are very happy with their jobs, 39% are somewhat happy, 14% are somewhat unhappy, and only 6% are very unhappy. A survey by Indiana University in 1983 showed that 83% of all Americans were satisfied with their work tasks, versus 53% for Japanese workers. Over 78% of American workers surveyed were satisfied with their supervisor, versus 50% for the Japanese. And 84% of Americans were satisfied with their life in general, versus 45% for the Japanese.
Other studies reveal a somewhat different story, however. When the question is worded, "If you could choose any profession you wanted, what would you choose?" Most studies show that the majority would choose something different from what they are currently doing. Although most Americans are basically satisfied with their work, they also have a strong desire to achieve greater overall satisfaction.
Accomplishments
Accomplishments are those experiences where you did something well, you enjoyed doing it, or you got some satisfaction from it. Accomplishments need not be particularly impressive to reveal a great deal about you. Reviewing your accomplishments plays a key role in building your self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as preparing you for interviews. As you look at your accomplishments, you will begin asking yourself, "When I was enjoying what I was doing, and when I was really effective at what I was doing, what types of things was I doing?"
Examining both work- and non-work-related accomplishments will reveal some patterns. You might begin to see that nearly every time you organize an event, you enjoy success and satisfaction. It would quickly become clear that an ideal career and an ideal job would be one that required you to spend considerable time organizing events. There are people, who are professional events planners, and you would probably want to look at that occupation, but there are many more people who have events planning as just one of their many functions. Perhaps you'll discover that it would be ideal for you to spend 20% of your time planning and organizing events, gatherings, conferences, and meetings.
Within each of your accomplishments, you used at least ten skills. By recalling 30 accomplishments and by writing about and identifying the skills in 12 of them, you are sure to increase your self-esteem. Later, as you begin reading about dozens of different occupations, you'll have a strong sense of which ones you could enjoy and be successful at. Identifying your accomplishments and skills will also play a key role in interviewing more effectively.
Skills
Most people feel they know what their skills are, but if you ask for specifics, most can provide only ten or fifteen skills. In actuality, everyone has hundreds of skills. When you know exactly what your top skills are, and which ones you enjoy using most, you are well on your way to identifying your right career and defining your ideal job.
Essentially there are three types of skills: personality skills, transferable skills, and work content skills.
Your personality skills include being energetic, effective under stress, and reliable. These are skills which simply describe the way you are. If being reliable is one of your top skills, it means that you are nearly always reliable. You don't wake up in the morning wondering if you will be reliable that day. You simply are reliable. It's part of your nature. In fact it's almost impossible for you to be unreliable. The key aspect of your top personality skills is that they are part of your very nature. Usually, these skills develop early in childhood and then are refined throughout adulthood.
Transferable skills also develop in childhood. They include such skills as establishing rapport easily, conceptualizing ideas, analyzing information, knowing how to figure out how mechanical things work, and getting audiences to relate to you. The outstanding feature of transferable skills is that they are highly useful in many occupations. Like all skills, people improve in their transferable skills with practice.
Work content skills make up the third category of skills. Work content skills are the more technical and specialized skills that people learn by watching others, taking courses, practicing on the job, or learning through an apprenticeship. Essentially, a work content skill is any skill which some people get paid for doing. Using this definition, knowing how to polish shoes and wash dishes are work content skills because there are people who get paid to do such things. Knowing how to repair a transmission, program in COBOL, or conduct an experiment with DNA are also work content skills.
When determining what type of career to pursue, you need to know if you have the potential to be good at it. In essence, each work content skill is composed of several personality and transferable skills. It isn't enough to want to be something; you have to have the potential for it. By knowing what type of work content skills are required for an occupation, you can determine which ones you already have. Then, by examining your personality skills and transferable skills, you can determine with a high degree of accuracy your potential to become proficient at those work content skills you don't currently have.
Temperament
According to Webster, temperament is a "characteristic or habitual inclination or mode of emotional response." In other words, temperament is what makes a person respond in a consistent way in a particular situation. If you are a gregarious person, you will enjoy being around people and will be frustrated in a job that isolates you from people. If you are a big-picture person, you will be frustrated if you spend all of your time dealing with details. As these examples suggest, it is very important for you to be in a career field and in a job which allows you to be what you already are. Careers and jobs should not ask you to try to be different from what you are. Gregarious people belong in gregarious jobs, and big-picture people belong in big-picture jobs.
Because humans are adaptable by nature, people often assume that they can simply force themselves to become whatever they must be in order to fulfill a job. It may work for a time, but there is a terrible price to pay. The versatile person who needs variety can survive for a time in a highly routine, repetitive job. Eventually, however, the person will become extremely frustrated and the quality of work will decline. As a result, promotions are likely to become harder and harder to obtain.
Unfortunately, we see a lot of people trying to make it in careers and jobs that are totally contrary to their temperament. The toll such efforts take on the psyches of these people is tremendous, and it is so unnecessary. Through self-knowledge you can avoid those careers and jobs which are contrary to your temperament.
Motivators
All people are motivated to do certain things. Some of your skills, for example, are truly motivated skills. There is something within you which motivates you to use certain skills. You are good at them, and you enjoy yourself whenever you are allowed to exercise those skills.
When you are motivated you work harder, smarter, and often longer. When you are truly motivated, you may even lose track of time. Work no longer seems like work. Perhaps you've experienced losing track of time simply because you were enjoying a hobby or activity so much.
There are other things besides skills that motivate us. People are motivated by money. People will often undergo great hardships even though the only thing motivating them is money. Some people are highly motivated by helping people. In fact, many people in notoriously low-paying jobs continue only because they have the satisfaction that they are helping people and society. Others are motivated by creativity. Give people like that a project and they will invariably give it a creative twist. We seek to do those things that motivate us, and we seek to avoid those things that do not motivate us.
The primary idea to grasp here is that all of us will do what we are motivated to do. When you are asked to do something that motivates you, you will do a great job. If you are asked to do something that does not motivate you, you will usually do a mediocre job.
Values
Values also exercise a great influence on us throughout our careers. For example, if you value your family and your family time highly, you may be frustrated by working for a company that demands your soul and ten hours a day as well. While most people do not mind occasional overtime, the person who wants to spend a lot of time with family is going to be frustrated working for such a company. Another key value is integrity. The person with high integrity will be frustrated working for a company which engages in shady dealings.
Knowing your values will help you identify the career fields and types of jobs which will enable you to remain true to your values.
