Job Satisfaction
What does it mean and how do achieve it.
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The term Job satisfaction is something that comes up every now and in everybody’s mind while they are working towards a career. What does it mean? Why is it important and how to think about it if you want to find purpose in your job? If this is something you think of, this article might help you think about and evaluate your own satisfaction criteria.
One thing to note before we proceed is that Job Satisfaction is subjective. What makes me satisfied at my job might be very different for you. Having said that, the thinking on how to find that is more or less the same.
What is Job satisfaction?
The fact that it varies from person to person means it has to lead to something you think will make you feel content and satisfied. For example, if I want to become an art creator, is my current job helping me push into becoming an artist? Or if I want to build a business, is my current job helping me to learn about business or create other opportunities to help me with business? If the answer is yes, highly likely you have some job satisfaction since it aligns with your goal.
Why do people overthink?
One of the patterns I have seen in the people I talk to is that they keep looking for that purpose in jobs. This is not wrong and extremely important, but the way you look for purpose can change your way of thinking. I feel a lot of people look for purpose in the job without defining what their life goals are and this is what creates what we call, quarter life, mid-life crisis, etc. If you don’t know what your goals are, it’s very hard to define the purpose of your job. And this could eventually lead to a person being very bored and not satisfied with their current job.
You could have multiple goals and it’s quite likely your job doesn’t satisfy all of them. But even if it satisfies most of them it’s not a bad place to be. For example, let’s say you have these goals you want
Earn enough pay based on your job (Yes, this is a valid goal. People who say don’t work for money are lying to themselves)
Learning new technical things
Learning new business skills
Building a network of people
Having a work-life balance
If you are lucky, there is a possibility your job satisfies all of them but in my opinion, even if it satisfies 3-4 of them, it’s not a bad place to be. You can’t always have everything you want so being content with what you have and striving for other things might make your current job easier and more satisfactory and you won’t be overthinking all the time. This does not necessarily say, you should just keep doing this and stay where you are (unless this is what you want). But this framework does help with not wasting your time looking for the purpose all the time and still helps you strive for achieving your unmet goals.
What should you do?
If you are in a similar boat, take some time to find your goals and write them down so that you know what you are looking for in the job. Once you have that then evaluate if your current job satisfies some of the goals. If it doesn’t satisfies anything at all, then it might be the right time to look for another job. If it does satisfy some of them maybe you can be happy here and then look for other areas without overthinking too much about the purpose of your job all the time.
I hope this helps you think clearly and create a more enjoyable work and life. If you have any suggestions or feedback about this topic feel free to comment or DM me on LinkedIn.
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