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In the long months of the pandemic, the question of meaning has come into focus for many people: They wonder whether their own job will fit into their lives at all in the long term.
Do you feel the same?
Or have you just become bored and you feel that you need new impulses?
Finding your own calling means doing something that is more than just a job to earn money.
Over the next five minutes of reading I would like to introduce you to a few factors that influence our job satisfaction.
Just let yourself be inspired by it in your self-reflection and get on the track of your calling.
Let's start with the simplest aspect: what are you good at?
Everyone has a talent for a certain aspect of life.
This is not about exceptional talents who have already mastered an instrument with virtuosity at the age of four.
It's about everyday strengths, such as the ability to understand technical systems or to win people over.
What are your strengths?
Take a pen and a piece of paper and write down any strengths you can think of. Those who live out their talent and achieve routine and skill through constant repetition will enjoy it and feel a deep satisfaction with it. Start your search when you are at school. Write down all the things that you were particularly good at. Which school subjects were easy for you? What hobbies did you pursue?
Then ask yourself whether you were able to develop your talents further during your training or studies.
Perhaps you took a completely different direction back then.
Then it might be worthwhile for you to think about the motives at the time today.
Sometimes you are forced to go in one direction for financial reasons, or your parents expect to take over a business or continue a family tradition.
What were your successes?
Since you started your career, you have definitely gained a lot of experience.
But in which areas have you really achieved success?
List all your professional achievements once.
Then look for common patterns.
The analysis of your successes leads you not only to your strengths, but also to your motives.
Are your success based on patience and a long and persistent optimization of small adjustments?
Then stability and predictability are probably important to you.
Or have you achieved your great success with innovations and breakthroughs?
Then you will very likely be driven by an inner urge to move forward and a curiosity for change.
How do you behave in groups?
People who want to influence a team or an organization strive to make decisions independently and to control things.
You only really come to life when you are allowed to assume a leadership role and take responsibility for others.
However, not everyone wants that.
Many are plagued by doubts and uncertainty and prefer a regulated work area with a permanent role in the team.
A secure sense of belonging is particularly important to them.
With their willingness to help, they are indispensable in any organization.
The question for this group is in which professional environment this willingness to help is appropriately valued - so that it does not mutate into (self-) exploitation.
Intro or Extro?
Another motif relates to intro versus extraversion.
Extroverts who focus their attention on interacting with others need opportunities to express themselves and to get in touch.
Because they really enjoy communicating.
Introverts, on the other hand, like to delve into a tricky task or draft large plans and complex concepts in private.
Some strive for perfection down to the last detail, others only see the "big picture" and improvise flexibly when difficulties arise.
Take your motives seriously and bring your talents to use.
A deep satisfaction
The combination of your skills with a fascinating area of interest or a meaningful mission would certainly be nice - the icing on the cake, so to speak.
But this is rarely decisive for professional satisfaction.
If you can analyze your strengths and successes and recognize your basic motives, then you have come a big step closer to your calling.
You may wonder how you can tell that you have found your calling.
Quite simply - you feel that your work is easy, you achieve success, you make progress and you have a deep satisfaction with what you do every day.
