Are you a high achiever, but you feel as you have reached a career plateau or you can’t find the right work motivation anymore? And you don’t know where to go further?
Why are there so many incredibly intelligent, reliable, professionals who have lost the sparkle for work motivation?
Through our career path, we are driven by different motivational or career drivers. A career driver is your inner force, which is the source of what you want and need from your working life. It is your inner imperative, which strongly influences you as an individual. If you don’t meet your drivers, you feel something is missing in your life. And this leads you to experience tension, frustration, meaningless, emptiness, mental fatigue. Feelings that also influence other aspects and relationships in our life.
Our career drivers are changing throughout our career journey because time changes, we change, and the world of work changes. If you look back into your past career path, you will find that at different times of your life, different motivational drivers motivated you. I know that when I began my career, the essential drivers at that time were security, financial independence, and achievement. Today it’s different, those factors are still crucial, but they’ve been disrupted by the forces of autonomy, expertise, and, most of all, purpose.
Although you have been successful so far, you don’t feel like your profession is right for you anymore. It may be time to find out why is that so and what may make you happy.
Most of us end up focusing on professional excellence over personal fulfillment, and often we lose ourselves in the process. We could say that we settle for less and therefore find ourselves frustrated.
Now it is time to integrate your personal development into your professional journey, and you will be ultimately enabled to find your sweet spot again.
Accept your current career driver as a privilege because after you find a purpose in your work, you can achieve what we might coin “workplace actualization.” And to get there, it’s more important to define your career by the impact you want to have than the title you wish to hold.
So far, you were motivated by social and cultural forces, but now you have become motivated by a drive for internal growth. And to reach your quest for professional growth in career, motivated by a drive for internal personal development and fulfillment, look within yourself.
It’s time to rediscover and reconnect with your true self and then manifest your newly discovered drivers for work into your future work life.
So, how can you find your inner sparkle for work again? Take some time and try defining your own four pillars upon which you would like to develop your ultimate career path further:
2. Legacy: Imagine the legacy you want to leave. When you look back on your life, what will you have done to make the world around you a better place?
3. Unique abilities: Get clear on your talents, strengths, knowledge, and skills that matter to you, so you can picture yourself and your future meaningful work in your profession. Follow what you love — those things that light your fire and ignite your curiosity.
4. Goals: When you have clarity on these questions, make a list of concrete goals, achievements, and qualifications you want to accomplish. And most importantly, they are aligned with your definition of success, your legacy you want to leave, and your unique abilities.
As all of this continuously unfolds, we come closer and closer to ourselves, accessing more internal power and innate ability. That is, we obtain and integrate more of our potential. And we become energized, fulfilled, and engaged again as we can follow our real drivers and needs. Then “work smarter not harder” becomes true. Achieving the right work motivation requires both soul searching and professional diligence.