So the job situation was by no means dire. I had a good boss who understood me and how I worked. The pay was satisfactory for my level of qualifications at the time and given that I was supporting a young family, I had no intention of rocking the boat too drastically.
I’d been there for about a year when I’d decided to pursue my growth and contribution philosophy. In that time, I was able to build the trust and confidence in my colleagues and superiors to become a reliable resource for the company. The problem was, I didn’t feel like I was adding any real value for me and now that I decided to make small changes, I set out to redefine my job. Not by looking elsewhere, in fact the exact opposite, I started to look inwards at my capabilities and strengths, at my purpose, at all the little things I could change. So there is tip #2: look inwards first. The age-old adage that the grass is greener on the other side is a fallacy. The grass is greener where you spend the time to nurture it.
At about the same time, it become clear to me that my professional career would not be able to blossom in that job. The difficulty was my job title was so obscure, the position description so cryptic, that any prospective employer wouldn’t have even given me the time of day. Even though I hadn’t made the decision to look for another job (in fact it was another 12 months before I began looking), I decided to rewrite my job description and give myself a new job title. This way, when the time did come for me to look for other employment, at least people could understand what it was that I did. I took it to management and said that contrary to what they thought I did, my value-add to the company is what’s written in the document I had prepared. And what’s written in this job description people commonly refer to as…
In looking inwards first and appreciating the value I was adding to the company, to the people who relied on my advice, to my own professional development, I began to approach my work deliberately and with purpose. This approach empowered me to grow as an individual both personally and professionally and I started to notice also that people I was associating with had shifted their approach to how they would deal with me also.
With my purpose of growth and contribution firmly in sight, a new state of mind ensued. This would allow me to pursue my professional goals with earnest. Now, to find that job…