When I first started working, I knocked myself out to show my worth and to reap great satisfaction from that work.
After a few years of trying and trying, I had to face the fact that plan wasn’t making progress.
I would like to say that I figured out a new strategy to do immediately. But noooo!
Much to my sorrow, it took a couple of decades for me to get it right – after lots of experimentation.
That experimentation searching for satisfaction with my work took me to different jobs, different locations, and serious self-examination.
But, slowly, very slowly, the pieces started to come together.
It started with simple changes that paid back big.
The first step was sleep. I was terribly confused and felt that working around the clock was the answer to the problem.
Many nights during the week I existed on 3-4 hours of sleep and by the end of the week, I was a real-life walking zombie! I could hear children tell their mothers…” look at the zombie going by!”
They were right…I was a wreck. A shipwreck was a good metaphor for me.
I had a hard time staying awake in meetings. My mind was fuzzy most of the time and grasping complicated topics in my work was virtually impossible.
But the biggest breakthrough came when I gave up.
Yep, I gave up!
I had a dream all my life to be an executive in a corporation and I was working myself into the ground to get there.
All I got from that was to drive myself into the ground.
It seemed the harder I worked, the worse it got…I was not moving closer to the executive suite but was moving away from it – or so it seemed.
Then I gave up.
Instead of focusing on moving up the ladder, I started focusing on the work I was doing at the time and how I could turn out the best product.
The payoff for giving up was immediate.
I slept better (and longer).
I started enjoying my work.
I got home in time to eat dinner with my family.
I took time off to see my son’s games. It was soooo good!
But the strangest thing of all I started to get more and more responsibility. I got into the executive suite of tiny startup companies (where you get titles instead of money) but I never got to the executive suite of a medium-size or large company – and that was fine.
I never want to say never but…at this point, I cannot envision the time when I would go work in an executive role. Not interested.
Because I got so much job satisfaction by being a worker bee rather than an exec, I have no interest in going up the corporate latter.
Some people thrive as an executive and I doff my hat to you. We need you in those roles.
But, I do ask the question to those executives, are you really happy with your life?
Satisfaction in your personal and work life is priceless and everyone needs to find their own sweet spot.
There are many more components to job and personal life satisfaction but these activities gave me the biggest return.