Career Contentment
Experts in career, medicine, psychiatry and psychology
agree that career contentment trumps job satisfaction in importance
to your career. But they point out this topic is difficult to understand
at first because it challenges traditional thinking which is confused
to begin with. How are we confused?
We associate job satisfaction with success and fulfillment and we
think contentment means “settling for less.” However, the opposite
is closer to the truth.
Job satisfaction plays only a minor role in your career. Your calling
is not to job satisfaction. Your purpose on earth is not job satisfaction.
Your hard work, education and sacrifices are for more than job satisfaction,
and your career choices are often made without regard to job satisfaction.
To illustrate, imagine working in a job that you believe is wasting
your time and talents. You’ll leave and it won’t matter what you’re
employer does to make you satisfied. Also, you’ll not settle for
just any job unless it gives you a sense of contentment linked the
use of your talents to fulfill your purposes. Your sense of contentment
guides your career choices.
Contentment doesn’t mean “settling for less.” In situations where
satisfaction isn’t possible, it refers to your self sufficiency and
state of mind to persist and endure with what you do have until you
can turn your situation around. Contentment provides your foundation
for resilience.
We assume the positive feelings of flow and accomplishment we get
from our work are job satisfaction. They’re really contentment.
Job satisfaction isn’t a feeling but a condition dependent on employers
doing something from the outside-in to fulfill your expectations.
You can’t simply choose to have job satisfaction, and because you
lack control over your employer, job, boss, pay, benefits and things
that make you satisfied, the probability exists you may never be
completely satisfied.
What you feel from the inside-out is really contentment, a state
of mind which is feasible independent of what employers do or don’t
do to make you satisfied. In other words, you can choose to be content
with your work even if dissatisfied with the employer supplied conditions.
This important distinction was previously overlooked.
Satisfaction which is inherent or “intrinsic” to your job is still
not an inside-out proposition because you can’t have it without the
job which is controlled by employers. Satisfaction always originates
outside of you while contentment is entirely from within, and only
you control it.
Career contentment explains why you won’t accept just any job, no
matter how satisfying. Why you can be content to stay in a job despite
dissatisfying conditions, and why you may leave a job despite the
best efforts by employers to keep you satisfied and engaged. Job
satisfaction is great if you can get it, and so is engagement but
only if you want it. Both are pointless unless you’re content with
your work in the first place. Contentment trumps satisfaction.
As you browse the following sections, we challenge you to let go
of how you were conditioned to think and open your mind to a new
way of thinking that enhances how you experience your life and career
– from a contentment point of view.
Q&A
What is career contentment? Answer > > >
What is career contentment?
It’s your peaceful state of mind that results from doing what
you love and loving what you do. Because it’s a state of mind,
you can choose to be content even if not entirely satisfied.
Is it the same as job satisfaction? Answer > > >
Is it the same as job satisfaction?
No! Job satisfaction is not
a state of mind you control but a condition controlled by employers
to attract, motivate and retain you. You can’t simply choose to be
satisfied because it’s dependent on what the employer chooses to
give you.
What’s the big idea?
Your sense of contentment with work enables
your resilience to have and enjoy the career you desire with or without
traditional job satisfaction.
Which is most important? Answer > > >
Which is most important?
Control of your state of mind and what you
do for yourself is always more important than what employers may
or may not be budgeted to do for you.
How do you get it?
Do what you love, love what you do without complaining,
stop expecting satisfaction, and let employers worry about keeping
you satisfied. If you can’t, you’re probably in the wrong job, or
need help learning how to recognize your career contentment.
Can employers provide it? Answer > > >
Can employers provide it?
No! Your state of mind is your business.
It’s not dependent on other people or material things. It’s dependent
only on the control you exercise over your thoughts, reasoning and
career choices.
Why didn’t we know about this before? Answer > > >
Why didn’t we know about this before?
We are conditioned to expect
employers to make us satisfied and to complain or quit if we don’t
get it. We were never trained how to rely on our contentment as a
source of personal empowerment and resilience. We misunderstood what
the terms satisfaction and contentment were originally created to
mean.
What is satisfaction?
The word, satisfy originates from the French
and Latin words sad and factitious. It’s sad because in order for
you to be made satisfied, someone has to do something to fulfill
your expectations first. You can’t simply choose to be satisfied.
It’s factitious or artificial because it doesn’t originate from within
but is dependent and conditional on people and things outside of
you. Because you lack control of these things, the probability exists
you may never be completely satisfied. This explains why each generation
complains about the same dissatisfactions despite ongoing efforts
by employers to improve job satisfaction. People are never completely
satisfied.
How does this relate to job satisfaction? Answer > > >
How does this relate to job satisfaction?
Job satisfaction
is codependent on what you do in exchange for what your employers
do and it’s conditional on whether they fulfilled your expectations.
You can’t simply choose to have job satisfaction, and because
you lack control over your employer, job, boss, pay, benefits
and other things that make you satisfied, the probability exists
you may never be completely satisfied. Whether job satisfaction
is intrinsic or extrinsic makes no difference. You can’t have
either without the job which is controlled by employers.
What is contentment?
The word, content originates from the French
and Latin words contain and enclosed, meaning from within. In situations
where satisfaction isn’t possible, or when your desires are limited
by what you already have, the contented person endures with a calmness
protected by their own self sufficiency. Contentment isn’t dependent
on things you don’t have or people you can’t control. It’s a self
sufficient state of mind which is dependent only on how you think,
and by reasoning alone, you can choose to be content even if not
happy or satisfied. Contentment is a source of resilience achieved
through reasoning.
How does this relate to career contentment?
See above, “What is Career Contentment.”
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Do You Get It
See the following two statements to see why career contentment
trumps job satisfaction in importance to your career?
Career contentment is a peaceful state of mind I get from
work that fulfills my calling and highest purposes for working.
Genuine career contentment can’t be purchased by me, given to me
or imposed on me. It’s a state of mind I choose to recognize from
within.
The positive feelings of accomplishment and flow I thought were
job satisfaction are really contentment, and are possible even if
my job conditions are dissatisfying.
Contentment stays with me when I change jobs, careers or employers
while the job satisfactions stay behind with the employer.
Contentment is a major source of personal empowerment, resilience
and success that was previously overlooked due to my preoccupation
or love affair with job satisfaction.
Only if I decide I’m content to stay in my job can employers hope
to make me satisfied, engaged, or make use of my strengths. All these
things are secondary to my contentment
Contentment doesn’t mean “settling for less” but refers to my self-sufficiency
to persist and endure to fulfill my highest purposes with or without
job satisfaction.
Contentment represents the agreeable middle ground whereas job satisfaction
is an either/or proposition. Either I have it or I don’t, but I can
always choose to be content.
With contentment as an option, complaining about dissatisfaction
wastes time and reveals a lack of control over my state of mind and
career to get what I desire.
Job satisfaction is not a state of mind or feeling I control
but a condition budgeted for and controlled by employers to attract,
motivate and retain me.
Whether job satisfaction is intrinsic or extrinsic doesn’t matter.
I can’t have either without the job which is controlled by employers.
But even without a job I still have a career or choice of work, and
control over my state of mind and contentment.
My calling is not to job satisfaction, and all my hard work, education
and sacrifices are to fulfill my highest purposes which are more
important to me than job satisfaction.
In order for me to have job satisfaction, someone has to do something
to fulfill my expectations first. I can’t simply choose to be satisfied.
Because I lack control over the people and things that make me satisfied,
the probability exists that I may never be completely satisfied.
The conditions for my satisfaction to exist can’t be sustained because
people and situations evolve and no one and nothing is absolutely
perfect. I can always find reasons to complain.
Employers can’t possibly satisfy all employees all the time at the
same time. When I expect satisfaction I’m giving myself reasons to
complain about dissatisfaction.
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Do Employers Get It
If you’re an employer and concerned about career contentment for
your employees, view the following two statements for a deeper understanding
of what this topic means from the employer point of view.
We get it! Employees expect job satisfaction but their careers are
guided and sustained by their contentment linked with meaningful
work.
We control jobs and how to satisfy but employees control their state
of mind and contentment, which they rely on to manage their career
– with or without the job satisfactions we offer.
An employee’s sense of contentment with work enhances their natural
resilience to withstand the effects of job dissatisfaction. Lacking
this sense of contentment, employees will leave and it won’t matter
what we do to try and satisfy them.
Our efforts to attract, motivate, satisfy, engage and retain employees
are pointless unless employees decide they are content with their
work in the first place.
Career minded employees expect job satisfaction but won’t forfeit
their purposes in exchange for what we give them to help fulfill
our purposes.
We can attempt to satisfy employees, but we can’t offer, purchase
or impose on them their sense of career contentment. They must choose
to recognize it and we must demonstrate our contentment worthiness
to them.
We get it! Why every generation entering the workforce complains
about the same job dissatisfactions is because no matter what we
do, employees are never satisfied.
The more we give employees the more they expect and yet they still
complain and go as they please to have rewarding careers – thanks
to their contentment.
Efforts to improve job satisfaction have limited effect because
it’s human nature to expect more, something new or different. Also,
employees evolve continuously which makes it impossible to keep all
of them satisfied all the time at the same time.
By offering job satisfaction when complete satisfaction is never
possible, we’ve encouraged employee dependence and expectations for
something we can’t possibly deliver, and employees have learned to
complain or quit when they’re dissatisfied. We’ve contributed to
creating our own problems.
We can no longer assume employees will be content with job satisfaction,
and we need to teach them how to pursue their career contentment,
and leverage it without complaining.
No one benefits when the wrong employee is in the wrong job and
complaining about dissatisfaction when they can leverage their contentment
to endure or leave to pursue it elsewhere.
In view of the difficulties associated with employees achieving
job satisfaction, plus the challenges involved with employers providing
it, greater emphasis focused on career contentment seems appropriate
and fiscally responsible to help minimize the effects of complaints
associated with job stress and dissatisfaction.
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