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In many of my leadership coaching sessions I am often asked, “How can I make my job more meaningful to me?” It’s usually followed with: “I am not totally unhappy with my role, it’s just that something feels like it is missing.” Maybe some of you are asking yourself the same questions right now. It’s not that you want to jump ship and move to another job all together, but rather you are sensing that something is missing in your current work situation.
It’s at this point that you may want to bury your head in the sand and just forget about changing things up. If you choose this route of pretending everything is fine at work, you will probably continue to feel frustrated and angry. Your dissatisfaction might then spill over into your job and workplace and may even cause you to become disengaged. Additionally, feeling unfulfilled in your career may impact your life outside of work. So instead of moping and whining, it is time to own your real feelings about your job and empower yourself to make some adjustments.
Here are five powerful ways to take ownership and tweak your job:
1. Move From Whining To Taking Action
It’s easy to get into a pattern of constantly complaining about our jobs. No role is perfect but that doesn’t mean we can’t change a few responsibilities to give our jobs more meaning and purpose. When we are tackling projects that call upon us to use our gifts and talents, we will feel more valued. If we are ready for a stretch assignment that will lead us to grow our skills, then we owe it to ourselves to ask for that type of work. Take action.
2. Decide What’s Working And What’s Not
Begin your process of exploration by analyzing your current responsibilities. This is a time where you may want to partner with a leadership coach to clarify what’s important to include in your new role. Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What specific parts of my job do I like?
- What specific tasks do I avoid?
- Where do I need to grow to move to another position?
- What would bring me more joy or excitement in my job?
- What gifts or strengths do I want to include in my new position?
3. Create The Job You Want
Now comes the fun part. Reflecting on the answers you gave, craft the way you would like to tweak your job. Include both the areas of your current work responsibilities that you want to continue as well as the new tasks that you are eager to try out. Think about your vision for your leadership trajectory. Where do you want to go? What do you want your leadership to look like? Don’t worry if you aren’t highly experienced in an area you are interested. You can always learn and train to perfect your skills.
4. Persuade The Decision-Makers
The next step is convincing the decision-makers why tweaking your role is great for them, not just for you. It isn’t good enough to just redo your job responsibilities on paper. You also need to self-promote the areas you want to gain experience and exposure.
- Explain your thought process on why you want to work on certain projects.
- Show the decision-makers how tweaking your job responsibilities will add value to the team and organization.
- Present your case with courage and enthusiasm.
5. Showcase Your Tweaked Job
Finally commit to working hard and keep everyone updated on your progress and successes. Share examples of how your new workload has helped you grow as a leader and contributed to a greater outcome for the organization. Model the way for other team members to also grow their careers by offering to open up about your process and actions.
Related: Five Key Benefits of Slowing Down Your Leadership Approach