How to be happy in your job - a practical approach
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Gain clarity about what really matters to you - including a free template for your personal status quo analysis.
(By the way, this approach also works for university and high school students who are thinking about which career fields or study programs to pursue!)
Have you thought lately about whether your job is still the right one? Do you ask yourself what really would make you happy and how you can achieve this? Have your priorities changed and things that used to be important to you are now less relevant (and vice versa)?
I have a step-by-step guide for you, that will help you to find out what’s missing in your job, what bothers you and what is going really well.
By comparing the status quo and your aspiration (= dream job) you will gain clarity about possible reasons for your dissatisfaction and you will be able to clearly identify potential areas of action.
It makes sense to do this via a structured approach. A written description will bring additional order to your thoughts.
To make the analysis easier for you, you will find a free template for download in this blog article, which you can use to weight different criteria for job satisfaction and then assess to what extent these criteria are met in your current job.
Download the template here and use it in parallel - we will go through the individual steps together. This way you can perform the status quo analysis on your own.
Download your free template “status-quo-analysis for jobs“ here:
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Ready? Let’s g0!
1. Which job criteria are important to you?
In the template you will find a number of criteria that play a major role for most people when it comes to identifying motivation and happiness factors for their job choice. Maybe some other topics matter more for you personally. Therefore, you will find some empty lines at the end of the template in which you can add your own criteria.
In the following you will find an explanation of the individual factors and hints on how to interpret them for yourself. Please regard this only as a suggestion - you might have a different understanding - then work with this one.
Regular experiences of success are an important motivating factor in professional life. Social status, reputation - however you define it for yourself - can also be part of what job satisfaction means to you.
Money is not everything, money does not make you happy - there are many statements of this kind. And yes, money alone can certainly not outweigh other points. Nevertheless, it is important to be appropriately remunerated for your own performance. And having to worry about money actually makes you rather unhappy. Therefore: are you satisfied with your salary? Or have you recently taken on more and more responsibility and are waiting for a salary increase that reflects this?
By the way, this point does not necessarily refer exclusively to salary. There are also different kinds of remuneration, like additional education budgets, special premiums or participation shares. Company cars are becoming more and more out of fashion, but maybe it is interesting for you? Get creative here and do some research.
Regular appreciation for your work in the form of praise and words of appreciation is enormously important for many people, but it is not always something we can influence. Are you someone to whom receiving recognition matters (and in what form?) or is it enough when you are satisfied with your work yourself?
A job with meaning - you hear it all the time these days and it often sounds corny and not very concrete. You could also put it that way: How much do you want to identify with your job, the company you work for? Is it important that you perform your work in accordance with your values? What added value should your work create for whom? Who should benefit from your work and why?
Fun and enjoyment at work not only increase productivity - they also make it easier to get through stressful times. Where is the optimal level for you between ease and seriousness?
Do you appreciate a lot of variety in your job and do you get bored quickly? Or do you rather enjoy developing a stable routine? This can refer to tasks, topics and people (colleagues, customers, etc.).
Independence in the sense of being able to act and decide on your own - how much autonomy and freedom of choice do you need to be able to enjoy your job?
Do you attach importance to having influence on your tasks? Do you enjoy taking responsibility? Or are you satisfied when you are mainly executing and can concentrate fully on your tasks?
How important is the prospect of future career steps to you? Do you attach importance to being offered development opportunities and being supported accordingly?
Does continuous growth on the job play a role for you? How important is it to you to constantly learn new things and to be able to improve your skills?
Whether you call it working atmosphere or team spirit: for many people, the quality of interpersonal relationships is decisive for job satisfaction. This includes the relationship with your supervisor and colleagues, because you probably see them more often as friends and family, depending on your job and working hours. Do you manage a team yourself? If so, you can add the relationship with your employees at this point.
Is it crucial for you to have as much freedom as possible in terms of working hours and choice of workplace? How important is a short commute and does traveling for work annoy you? What about overtime - exception or norm? Or would you like to increase your number of working hours?
Did we cover everything that is important to you? Otherwise, feel free to add further points at the end of the template.
2. How much does this matter to you?
In the next step, you will go through the listed areas one by one and ask yourself: on a scale of 1-10, how important is this criterion in my job to me? 1 stands for "I don't care", 10 for "is very important to me". You don't have to use every value and you can also assign each value several times. Try to be quite intuitive and don’t think too much about the individual weightings.
Note your individual weighting factor in the star symbol in the template.
3. How much does your current job meet these criteria?
Done? Then, in the third step, try to assess how well the respective area is fulfilled in your current job situation on a scale of 0% to 100%. 100% would be considered the ideal situation. It is not so much a matter of hitting the "exact" value. Sometimes there are good and bad aspects to an area and you might have difficulty expressing this in percentage terms. One example for this is team spirit, which is shaped by different people.
Try to assess your overall impression and ask yourself how much is lacking so that you would really be 100% happy with this area.
Mark the percentage on the scale with a vertical line or a hatched area.
4. What conclusions can you draw from this?
What do you notice when you look at the filled template?
Are there any areas that are not really fulfilling at the moment, but at the same time you consider them to be very important for you?
Then it makes sense to take a closer look here: What is lacking, what am I missing? How do I notice this? How should it be?
Another important question you should ask yourself when evaluating your results is: Can I influence it myself or is it outside my sphere of influence?
Also consider whether you have already undertaken some steps to improve something for yourself and whether this has been successful.
Here is an example to illustrate this with the topic "lack of appreciation". It could be that your work is not sufficiently recognised by your manager because you lack visibility. Therefore, is it possible to try to appear more confident in feedback talks and to communicate your achievements differently and therefore better? Or have you already tried this several times and still have not been able to achieve a different outcome? In the long run, this understandably leads to frustration and can also be a reason to consider other steps. After all, you are hoping for a change of behaviour from another person and this is not fully within your sphere of influence. So it makes sense to distinguish exactly what you can and cannot change.
Maybe you will also come to the conclusion that your professional situation is actually not that bad. Then ask yourself if your perspective has already changed through this exercise and whether your dissatisfaction has decreased - sometimes we just have to become aware of all the good things that are already there.
Or are you still quite unhappy?
Maybe this feeling does not come from within, but from the outside?
Friends, family, and even strangers might say to us that we can't be happy "there" after all, asking us whether we don't want to look for something new etc.
Maybe you have heard something like "you should change jobs every 2 years".
Maybe everyone in your surroundings or your age group is being promoted at the moment.
Do such experiences and statements cause pressure to act? And - if you are completely honest with yourself - is this feeling actually conflicting with your own wishes?
You might notice - this is not the end of this introspection, but rather the beginning...
5. What happens next?
You should already have much more clarity about what is important to you personally when it comes to your professional situation. You probably also have a better overview of what is missing in your current job and what has led to possible dissatisfaction.
By the way: not every job has to fulfil all criteria 100%. Just as we often have exaggerated expectations of our life partners, we also think there is this one job - with a top salary, colleagues that are actually friends, the best manager you can imagine, maximum flexibility in terms of work location and working hours, varied tasks, constantly new challenges, promotion on a silver platter and everything in full accordance with our values. If this is the case - great!
But it is also okay when a job does not fulfil everything. We can achieve more satisfaction and happiness in other ways as well. Especially when it comes to meaning and values, it might be a way to bring more of them into your life through a part-time job or voluntary work. Maybe you only have a less inspiring office job, but a hobby that really brings you joy - wonderful!
The question is - what do you do with this knowledge now?
There can be different answers to this question:
changing your current work tasks (for example a new project);
asking for a promotion;
negotiating a pay rise;
reducing or increasing the number of hours;
taking some time off from work;
conducting conversations with colleagues, employees or superiors;
resigning;
taking up a voluntary activity;
etc.
Also a combination of the points mentioned above can be the right thing for you.
Phew, quite a lot to digest, isn't it?
Depending on the result and your personality, you might be highly motivated now to take the next steps!
Or are you rather feeling insecure and overwhelmed about what you should do now?
Or were you already a little lost at step 1?
Don't worry, we'll get it right!
This is how i help you:
Do you need support in evaluating your status quo analysis?
Are you wondering how you can better use your strengths, skills and talents in your current (or future) job?
Do you want to develop first ideas for a career change?
I will support you in reviewing your current situation and identify with you which steps can lead you to more satisfaction and fulfilment in your job - whether it is preparing for an interview or difficult conversation, the next career step or a change of jobs.
Let's find out about your next steps together.
Do you have questions? Write them in the comments below.