Career Reflection Questions

Shownotes:

Have you ever wondered why there are people who grow unhappy with their career as time pass by? Some people find dissatisfaction in their jobs because they feel like they are stuck on a wheel that goes round and round without end. And usually, this scenario happens because of our failure to reflect on our career and how it affects our life, both financially and mentally. Are you content with your career? Does it really help you and the people around you?

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about how to reflect on your career, your job, your business. You can do this at any time. People really like to do this at the start of the year, in the middle of the year ... every quarter. As long as you do it, it's fine. It doesn't matter how often or when you do it. So, I want to talk about a couple of things.

The first thing is, does your work matter? And the reason I say this is because it's a really fundamental question. Because, if the answer's, "No," then why are you doing it? Or if it's, "No, but it gives me the money to do other things that matter," that's fine. But, your happiness, both professional and personal, come from possibly doing work that you care about.

And so, you need to think about what you've done, why you've done it, what you've achieved, what does it mean to you, why does it mean these things to you, and ... Because, what we've found now, is that a lot of people, when they're looking for companies to work for, they want to have meaningful jobs. They want to know that what they do matters. And not just matters to themselves, but to the greater community.

So, just stop and take a look, and think about, "What is it that I do?" Not every single thing that you do as part of your work has to matter, but there should be something in there that, "Yes, I enjoy doing this part because of X, Y and Z." Or, "I enjoy this because I get to work with Y, B and X." It doesn't matter, but you need to think about what you're working that is and doesn't matter.

And also, not just to you, but does it matter to your employer? Or does it matter to your clients? Because the best way to get a synergy with work is to make sure that you're all on the same page, and one way of doing this is comparing your values, and does that work matter?

Now, the next thing is, right now we are in constant flux and constant change. Skills that you acquired last year might not be so good and useful this year. Technology changes so quickly, and there used to be just one, like ... Buffer used to be the thing that you used to use for your social media, but now there's Meet Edgar and there's Social Curator and there's all these things. Technology drives a lot of what we do these days, and how we do it.

Just today, I ended up trying a new software for someone as far as rendering your podcast, and sort of mastering it and digitally producing it. I got one thing that I use right now, but this person came up with a new thing, and I should try it, right? So, just take a look and look back over the past year, or six months, and see ... Have you learnt any new technology? Is there something new that's come out that's better for your business? Or better for your career? Or something that you'd just like to know more about? And take a look, because probably there is something that you'd like to take a look at, and just see what would happen.

Now, the other thing that's really important to think about when you're just doing an analysis, is your financial wellbeing. And, that can be your personal or your business, or both, financial wellbeing. I mean, money alone doesn't dictate how satisfied you might be, but it sure does help. So, when you're thinking about, holistically, your lifestyle, where you want to be, what you want to do, where you might want to be located, think about the funding needed and required for that. Also think about retirement, what you want to do, how that would look, and are your financial needs currently being met? If not, is there something that you can do to change it? Could it be learning a new skill? Could it be changing position? Could it be starting a new branch of your business?

Just stopping and taking stock of these three things can help you pivot or lead you in a different direction, because sometimes we just get so lost being in the weeds and just getting stuff day to day, that we forget to breathe and take a step back and think, "Okay, what are my values? What do I enjoy doing? What do I give back to the community? Or, my community ... whatever that might be. And, are my finances where they need to be?" Those are really important things. And then, "What technology can I use to get myself there? What technology can I use to help other people do X, Y and Z?"

So, these things are very much intertwined. You can use apps to track your finances. You can snap photos to see how much money you spend on these different things ... All of these things together will help you make a decision about what you want to do next. Maybe what project you want to work on and the type of people you want to work with. So, that's one quick way of how you can make a review if you're in a career, or if you have your own business, to see what the next three to six months might lead you to.

Thank you for listening. This is Janice@TheCareerIntrovert.com, helping you launch your podcast or your book with great workflows and strategies and systems to help you be consistent.