Work-Life Satisfaction Tip: Embrace Your Fluid Career

Are you focused on your job or your career? Take the long view.

“Are you happy in your job? Are you fulfilled and feeling purposeful? Does your boss make your life manageable or miserable?”

These are questions I ask in coaching sessions. Lately, I’m wondering if they are the wrong questions to diagnose whether a person’s job is a good fit, much less whether it means now is the time for a job change. Seems odd for a coach to say that, right? I mean, aren’t fulfillment and meeting needs (like income) the reasons we work?

Here’s my “aha” moment on this subject, spurred by a number of my clients who don’t understand why their “okay” jobs are often so at odds with their life goals. What I’ve come to believe is that our cultural stories about what a job should be cause us to put too much emphasis on “the job” and not enough emphasis on “the career.” As a result, we expect to much from our jobs, and too little from our employers.

Shifting the Focus From Job To Career

When you follow the predominant cultural stories about employment you end up believing that each job should be THE job and you fall into a scarcity mindset that tells you “you’re lucky to have a job at all.” The result is that you give your employers too much power in your employment relationship, and too often leave on the table proactive opportunities to shape a career that grows you as a person and supports your life at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong, even if your job isn’t THE job, it’s still really important. When you’re feeling good about your job, a lot of other challenges in life are more bearable. And conversely, if you’re not feeling good about your job right now, your career and life are definitely suffering.

There was a time (many years ago) when you’d be in a job, on average, 10+ years. This was the era my father grew up in. In that length of time, you’d be likely to go through a life stage (or two!) In 10 years, you could get a couple of grad degrees, have several significant relationships, or get married, have two kids and get divorced. Oh. And you’d probably be male. So “a job” was more likely to be THE job and would be the most unlikely thing to change in your life during those years. As a result, your job needed to be stable and provide a backbone for your life and your family.

It’s been a long time since you’d be likely to stay in your job for 10 years, and yet I still hear people giving advice like, “recruiters look askance at you if you’ve been in a job less than 7–8 years” (i.e., even if you hate your job you should stay so you don’t look disloyal to your next employer.) Given that many people don’t have the choice to stay in their jobs that long, this “advice” can put many in a conundrum. In truth, recruiters and hiring managers don’t look for long stints, they look for a career story that makes sense, shows accomplishment and reasonable “loyalty” to employers, given market conditions, mergers and other unpredictable factors.

But the fact that many of my clients are still confused about this issue tells me that our cultural stories about how to manage our careers haven’t caught up to our reality.

Most people’s employment reality has changed pretty dramatically since my father’s era, when these stories came to fruition, in the days of the pension plan. Today, we’re working later into our lifespan, thanks to medical advances, economic uncertainty and the thinning of the social net. Also, catalyzed by technology-enabled disruptions that have the power to cause entire job categories to appear and disappear in less than 10 years, and the survived-several-downturns economy, the average job tenure in the private sector is 3.7 years. Average.

Now the truth is that shorter job tenure isn’t a terribly new phenomenon. These job tenure stats haven’t changed dramatically for the last 20 years, but the stories we tell ourselves about how long we “should” be in a job, what kind of loyalty employers expect and how “lucky” we are to be employed hark from earlier eras.

Once we wake up and accept this fact, that most of us are likely to have a fluid string of 10–15 jobs across multiple industries through our working lifetime, instead of 2–3 stable ones, we realize that our jobs aren’t likely to be the most stable factors in our lives anymore. Our jobs are at least as likely to change right along with our life events and relationships. Add to this the lowered cost of going into business for yourself online, and other opportunities to string together a series of “gigs” to make a liveing, and our careers become much more important than any singular job.

When you think about it, this is very freeing. Over the course of a 10–15 job career, you have more flexibility and freedom to pursue your dreams, and enjoy some side trips along the way. At some times you can forgo some short-term fulfillment to invest in long-term skills building. At other times, you can choose short-term fulfillment knowing you’ll have a chance to invest in long-term skills development in your next gig. Knowing that each job is a waystation to your next one, you can more easily find a good attitude in a dreary work environment because you know it’s only a short-term gig.

Make no mistake, each job matters. If you don’t build each job into a solid step forward (or sideways) on your career path, it’s a forever-unstable foothold. The trick is to succeed in each job, and find a way to use that success to position yourself for your next move. Knowing exactly when to start planning your exit is an art more than science.

But you only experience this fluid career freedom if you accept that each job is your choice, and it’s not your only choice, because you will be moving on pretty soon. The best thing about this perspective is that when you take this longer-term view, it’s easier to feel more empowered in each employer relationship, and you can ask your employer for what you need to build the next step in a healthy career.

If Your Career Isn’t Healthy, Neither are You

Breaking free of the “this job is THE job mindset” opens you up to considering whether your job is contributing to a “healthy” career and a healthy life — or not. In my own case, for example, I went from great job to great job, and yet still found myself over-specialized for something I wasn’t feeling passionate about anymore in my late 30’s. I noticed this lack of passion at the same time that family events demanded more of me, and between the two I ended up in a minor career crisis (i.e., not healthy at all!) The result was some soul-searching and backtracking into a career switch (or, as I told myself at the time, an “evolution.”), which in hindsight took way too long. I think if I’d paid more attention to where my career was taking me earlier on, instead of whether I “liked” my individual jobs, I might have started the evolution a bit earlier and had a faster and smoother experience when I decided to turn the aircraft carrier (my career) of my life. (I also would have gotten better mentors and coaches, but that’s another story!)

From that experience, and working with clients to position themselves for success in their current positions, or in career planning for a new job, here are some core questions to take the temperature of your career health.

1. Are you growing as a person in your current job (or the job you’re seeking)? (If not, whose fault is it that you’re stagnating? Regardless of the answer, the solution lies with you.)
2. Does your current job (or the job you’re seeking) allow you to be present for the life you must live right now? Does it allow you to be fulfilled as a individual, and live in integrity with the friends and family who you’ve allowed to rely on you? (If not, whose fault is it that you’re not present to your life? Regardless of the answer, the solution lies with you.)
3. When you look at the trajectory of jobs you’ve already had, and the one that will lead you towards your 3–5 year career-life goals, is your current job (or the job you’re seeking) bringing you into greater alignment with your desired future? (If not, whose fault is it that you’re not aligning your past and future? Regardless of the answer, the solution lies with you.)

I find these questions put my clients into a mindset which helps them find short-term job satisfaction — even in an “only-okay” job — while also positioning themselves more successfully for their next one. Because statistically speaking, their next job is right around the corner, even if it’s in their current company.

You’ll notice the common variable in the questions above: The solution lies with you. What I mean by this is that no one — not a mentor, a boss or a career coach — is going to fix anything in your career for you. No one is going to tell you what you should be when you grow up (and if they do, regard their opinion with great suspicion.) Only you can make the adjustments necessary to get your work-life into alignment for the short-term and the long-term at the same time.

The problem is that, if you’re like many of my clients (and 30 year old me!), you feel hamstrung and powerless to make major changes to your work situation. You might not even know what you want your career-life to be like in 3–5 years. You might be afraid that if you ask for what you want and/or need, you’ll “get fired,” or won’t get the job in the first place. This is normal, but it’s not necessarily going to lead you into building a healthy career.

The ultimate solution to feeling more personally powerful in your career development is as unique as you are, and good mentors and coaches can definitely help you with this, but it almost always boils down to this fundamental truth: you must have an idea of what you want and need. You must seek jobs that give you what you want and ask your employers for what you need, proactively negotiating your agreements with them. And you must be willing to walk away if you don’t get what you need, which is what gives you your negotiating leverage.

Empowering Yourself in The Employer-Employee Relationship

Accepting that you are likely to have a fluid succession of jobs, which you can turn into a healthy career, empowers you. Through this lens you can view your career as a series of employer relationships that will blend differently with your life over time. When you realize that you’re not choosing just a few employers in the course of your career, but many, it frees you to break out of a scarcity mindset. You can realize that there are many fish in the sea and that you can (and will) swim with a bunch of them over the span of your career. You can choose the one(s) that support the work-life balance you need right now, and move on to others that support you differently in the future when your needs change.

A fluid and abundant career development mindset allows you to take more risks, and be more selective at the same time. It can help you break out of the “if I’m not moving up, I’m not succeeding” mindset so you can give yourself permission to swim sideways for a while and explore the reef. It allows you to have intentions for each job that are related to your personal interests and fulfillment, the quality of life you want and the requirements of your life at this moment of time as you build a meandering path to your career-life goals. As long as you have an idea of what you want, you increase your odds of getting it exponentially.

How do you use your career-life intentions to help you establish an empowered relationship with your employers along the way? It’s starts when you’re job seeking: take the time to research your perfect job, which will help you filter out all the bad ones with ease. Next, when you’re interviewing and negotiating your employment package, ask for what you want and need, because you’re negotiating leverage will never be as strong again with that employer. This is the time when you’re negotiating your formal agreement with your employer, so read the fine print and be willing to walk away. Finally, once you have the job, deliver excellent results and use it to refine your personal brand to position you for a career-life future aligned with your desires and needs. Use your success on the job to give you leverage as you continue to negotiate your informal agreements with your bosses to make sure you’re getting as much of what you want as you can, and definitely what you need. Always be ready to walk if you’re not getting what you need.

Many employers are still struggling to figure out how to navigate this modern work-worker reality as well, but one thing is clear: employers** are not taking responsibility for your career development. When it comes to navigating your own fluid carer, you’re on your own.

Even though you don’t always feel empowered in negotiating your employment relationship with your employer, trust me, if you’re good at what you do, you are, especially as the job market tightens in certain job categories. Excellent employees who ask for things — more salary, more experience, more flexibility — are more likely to get it. If your employer doesn’t see your value, find one who will.

If you’re not good at what you do, get better so you have more leverage.

If you see your job category disappearing, negotiate with your employer to cross-train into new jobs. If there are no new jobs, get out before it’s too late.

The thing is, it’s not up to your employer to tell you all this, or have your back in the negotiations. It’s up to you.

Still don’t feel empowered? You’re not alone. Most of us don’t. So surround yourself with friends, advisors and resources to help you gain the career-life confidence you need. Take responsibility for crafting a healthy career that supports your life, brings you satisfaction and stretches over decades. Don’t ask yourself if you like your job, ask yourself if your career is supporting the life you want to live right now, and whether your current employer is giving you what you need right now. Then take action to move all these parts of your life-work blend into alignment.

And enjoy the ride!

* Wondering about the employer’s view of this whole new employment reality? Check out Jennifer’s fluid workforce post to get a peek.

Take the 2-Minute Career Quiz to learn how healthy your career is right now, and what you can do to make it better.