What you do for work has a huge impact on your quality of life, whether you’re career focused or not. We spend a huge chunk of the waking day at work, so it pays to check in with whether your job is still serving you.
Taking the time to regularly audit (or Marie Kondo) your career can help keep you out of stagnant mindsets and work environments where you’re not truly thriving.
Here’s how to check in with where you’re at career wise, and whether it could be time for a change.
#1 Grade Your Work Day On A Happiness Scale
With lots of us working from home for the time being, it’s a great chance to step back and take a look at how your day-to-day work life really stacks up against your own personal values. Write out a day in your life as though you were going into the office, starting with getting up, getting dressed and leaving the house, right through to coming home and cooking dinner. Grade each aspect of that work day in terms of how aligned it is with your truest self. If you find yourself hating the fact you’re pulling crazy hours with little reward, you could be underappreciated and be better off looking for a company with more work/life balance. If you find that you actually love being up early with a place to be, it could be a sign that team-based, collaborative work environments should be a focus for you.
#2 Check Out The Competition
Searching for a new job is often seen as a bit ‘taboo’. The slinking to interviews, the lying about why you’re late, the secret phone calls while you talk to a prospective employer in the loo. But the reality is, there is no harm in seeing what’s out there. In fact, regularly keeping on top of the job market in your field can benefit you in more ways than one. Not only do you keep abreast of the salaries being offered by other companies, but you see the skills and attributes that other employers are looking for. You might spot a chance to upskill or earmark something to improve on for when you do decide to make the move.
Have a look at relevant job ads and see how they make you feel. Do you feel excited and eager to read more? Perhaps upset that you’re being undervalued? Or maybe you realise how great you’ve got it at your current job. Your emotional response to other jobs will tell you a lot about how you feel about you
#3 Bring The Focus Back To You
Lots of us struggle with a sort of ‘corporate hangover’ from the traditional working environment, even in more contemporary working arrangements. We see our jobs as something we just ‘have to do’, and focus more on pleasing our boss than ourselves. But, bring the focus back to you for a second. Get creative. What do you want? What do you wish you were doing everyday? If money were no object, what would spend your working days doing?
Need some career audit inspo? Hear it from the pros in these seven game-changing career TEDx talks.
Emma is a finance blogger at The Broke Generation and a reformed spendaholic. She shares hot tips on saving, property, tax, career and investing for millennials who want to break the spending cycle and get financially confident.
Image Credit: Matthew Sperzel
