So how would you like to wake up every day and really look forward to going to work?
In Career Sweet Spot Parts 1 and 2, we looked at Finding your Values and then your Strengths.
The third part to finding your Career Sweet Spot is to find your Why. In other words, find your Purpose.
One of the first things I like to do when I career coach job seekers, is aim to uncover the reasons Why people do what they do. What is their Intention? What is their Purpose? What is their Why?
Over 2014, I facilitated a number of career readiness workshops for hundreds of job seekers. I found that when workshop participants got to the heart of Why they do What they do, something palpable changed not only in themselves, but also for the people who heard their Why.
People wanted to be part of their Why, their story.
I have long been a fan of storytelling. I have been part of several workshops where participants successfully crafted a story to explain their Why and their fellow workshop participants were overcome, with literally love and tears… and this was at the workplace!
When you have a well-formed Why, it is emotionally magnetic.
As a job seeker, it makes you attractive to clients; to stakeholders; to hiring managers. It makes you a job applicant who people want to hire.
An awesome Why does not merely come from your head. It is not cerebral. It must be from your mind, body and core.
Here are a couple of Whys we workshopped:
- My Dad died when I was 10. He did not need to die. But in those days, he was unable to receive quality health care. From the day he died, having seen what tragically happened to him and the impact his passing had on the rest of my family, I decided to dedicate my life to making sure that people – no matter what their background, their demographic or circumstances – would receive better health services.
- In the space of one year, I attended 70 funerals of family and community members – most of whom were aged between 37 and 52 in remote parts of my home State. I was so overcome by the injustice and the inequality of services and support to people in remote areas, that I quit my successful career as a plumber and made a commitment that people in remote areas would never endure such suffering ever again.
Simon Sinek forged the Why movement.
To get an appreciation of the body of his work, you can watch an abridged version of his TED talk here.
It’s easy to go from the outside-in: the clearest, to the fuzziest (from What to Why.) But truly amazing people and organisations go from the inside-out: the Why, the How, and the What: what Simon Sinek calls ‘The Golden Circle’.
In his best-selling book, Start with Why, Sinek related that only when he learned to articulate “Why” he did what he did, did his life start to turn around.
He literally stopped talking about What he did and only started talking about what he believed.
He said that people who believed what he believed in, wanted to learn more. He said that his friends started talking about “Why”. They invited him to their apartments for informal gatherings to talk to their friends. He started to get invitations to more and more places, from more and more people — everyone who wanted to learn about the “Why”. He was magnetic.
So in crafting your magnetic Why:
- What triggered you to start on your own journey?
- What stories along the way helped to reinforce that your journey was on the right path for you?
- What do you believe in?
- What have you dedicated your life to?
- What are you committed to?
- Why do you get out of bed in the morning, and why should any one care?
- What is the visceral, core reason you do what you do?
In Summary
Your Values and Strengths are the first two steps in getting to the sweet spot of your career move.
However, nothing keeps you going during tougher times or is attractive as when you have a clear understanding of your own Purpose, your Intention, your Why.
By following these three steps you can choose your own career and wake up every day, really looking forward to going to work.
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