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Careers: Is there a perfect job?

Careers: Is there a perfect job?

A former colleague had a bone to pick with me recently. He’s enjoying the blog posts but commented on the frequent theme of positivity. His point is that, while positive messages are welcome, they can be hard to read if you’re in the middle of a bad day. So he’s challenged me to write about the things that make up a bad day for me.

Here it goes. And in doing so, I’m also going to try to answer the question, is there such a thing as a perfect job?

One obstacle I face is vulnerability. For 12 years prior to Inspo, I worked in a large organisation. I felt a huge sense of ‘security’ being one of 100,000 plus people working in a strong, solid, global company. Now, I work in a fledgling business with a workforce of one. As a consequence, I do feel the pinch of vulnerability on occasion in this uncertain world of working for yourself.

Another challenge is concentration. There are times during the day when my concentration wanders. No big deal I hear you say. That’s fair enough save for the fact that I can be impatient too. So when my mind wanders my progress wanes. That causes me frustration. That ability for my mind to wander is the same as in the old work life. However, there’s no longer a safety net now of a wider team to ensure progress is being maintained.

Lastly, being part of a large workforce meant that there was constant people interaction. I really enjoyed that. Despite the craic around the Innovation Centre and getting to meet great people and businesses through my work, the people interaction is less frequent now. Consequently, the new set-up can be lonely at times.

So, what does a bad day look like for me? Well, these three factors are the biggest contributors to a bad day. Thankfully though, these days are in the minority.

Now to the question, is there such thing as a perfect career? Perfect for me is an unattainable benchmark. Most careers have imperfections. I’m happy to take the imperfections above as part of the package. Why? Because the gratitude I have for being able to do to what I do outweighs the imperfections involved in doing it.

For me, that is the ‘target space’ to aim for in your career. The more gratitude outweighs the imperfections, the better. And both can managed up or down accordingly.

A couple of good questions to ask yourself are:

  • Does the gratitude I have for being able to do what I do outweigh the imperfections involved in doing it?
  • What options are available to me increase that gratitude and/or reduce the imperfections?

There may be simple, practical and realistic steps emerging from answering the second question that you can implement with little effort. Every little bit ‘tips the scales’ in the right way.

And if needed, it can be a catalyst for more action too.