Are You Actually Happy With Your Career?

As I was filtering through emails and responding to the various questions that hit my inbox every day, one jumped out at me and made me pause. One so good, I have to share it with you so that it also makes a positive impact on you!

Mind you, it takes a lot for an email to jump out and make me look inward. Emails are a necessary reactive task. However, I am not a fan of pouring the majority of my daily energy into them.

Philosophy on Emails

With emails, we react to what others want for us. Since they are not proactive tasks, which are most important for our career growth, we shouldn't spend our entire day living in our emails if we want to grow our careers.

The difference and balance between proactive and reactive tasks in our daily lives are significant to our success, and I will discuss this topic in future posts and courses. I also have written articles for IIABA on this topic if you want to check it out.

If this topic interests you, join our NextGen Insurance Consulting Group LinkedIn page for up-to-date communication on tapping into productivity and balancing reactive v. proactive tasks to create a successful insurance career.

Why This Email Was So Good!

The email that jumped out could be considered spammy, as it was a Harvard Business Review Management Tip of the Day. I highly suggest you do if you haven't signed up for them! They are quick tips that only take a few moments to read and can be very impactful, depending on the day.

This was titled: Ask Yourself These Questions at the Midpoint of Your Career.

When was the last time you asked yourself check-in questions about your career? When was the last time you answered them without societal pressure or with what you want to respond with and not what others would like to hear?

It has probably been a while, and you are not alone. We get into a groove and try to get by day by day. Especially in this crazy hard market, we are in.

NOTE: The title says we should ask these questions at the midpoint of our careers. However, I believe we should ask these questions often and definitely not wait until we are 10, 15, or 20 years into a career.

Here are questions to find out if you are actually happy in your career

What could I regret in 10 years?

How do I define and tap into my purpose?

What are my values and priorities today?

What mastery have I developed?

What do I want my days to look like?

A bonus question that I challenge you to answer honestly as it forces you to dive deeper into your values and purpose while looking at it from a 10,000-foot view is:

How do I want to be remembered in my career?

Write down what immediately comes to mind and describe what you envision someone would say about you after you have retired. Your answer will include descriptors of what you value and what your purpose might look like.

The farther you are from your values and purpose in your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks, the more unhappy you will feel in your career.

Why?

Because the energy and time you are investing in your focus and tasks are energy suckers. The more something sucks our energy away without refilling it, the more unhappy, defeated, and burnt out we are going to feel.

We refill our happiness and energy tanks by doing things that align with our values and purpose. With each day, month, or year that passes without you performing repetitive tasks that do not align with your values and purpose, your tank depletes more. Some deplete faster than others, and some of us feel the defeat and burnout more strongly than others.

If you put diesel fuel in a gas-run vehicle, it won't go far. If you repeatedly focus your energy on things that do not align with your values and purpose, you will run out of gas.

You will start to question, can I even do this job? Is insurance the right industry for me? Do I even know how to sell? All valid feelings when doing things not aligned with your values and purpose.

How to Feel Happy in Your Career

Since we are all about practicality here at NextGen Insurance Consulting Group, I will not bore you with a long-winded response. Here is a bullet-point list of suggestions to help you feel happy in your career again.

• Take a day to really dive deep into what you really want.

  • do not make responses that you think other people want to hear.

• Ask yourself the questions above to find out if you are happy in your career now.

• Balance your day with a majority of your work being proactive and planned.

• Put what you think will make you happy into action and actually do it.

  • i.e., close the gap between your energy-sucking tasks and fulfilling tasks.

  • Fulfilling tasks are usually proactive, planned out, and aligned with one's values and purpose.

• Make small or large changes that align with your values and purpose more.

  • If you are in a toxic workplace, find a new position, a new team, or a new job. The only effective way to heal from a work culture that is toxic of hurting your mental health is to cut it off.

  • Delete your work email app from your personal phone.

  • Put your work phone away after working hours.

  • Take the vacation.

  • Set expectations. (read how to do that effectively here)

• Plan your week before it even starts. Write out exactly what you are going to focus on for that day.

  • For example, on Monday, I will spend 2 hours answering emails, 1 hour prospecting, 1 hour networking on LinkedIn, and 1 hour on career development. I will then reserve 2 hours of open time for urgent meetings, phone calls, emails, and anything else you want to get done.

• If you envy someone else's job, book of business, promotion, success, etc., write down what about them you envy.

  • Then, visualize and write down how you can make it a reality.

Being unhappy in your career is a hard feeling to work with. It sucks our motivation, makes us not see opportunities, makes us feel defeated, makes us feel burnout, and the list of negative things can go on and on and on.

Even if you are unhappy in your career today, you still have the personal power to make uncomfortable changes that will improve your sense of fulfillment and happiness. It starts with choosing small efforts more aligned with your values and purpose, and building on those efforts every day.

When you feel lost or stuck, ask yourself the questions above to recenter yourself and remember why you even took the job in insurance in the first place.

The goal is to find work that provides for you financially and has a healthy amount of challenge to keep you intrigued while also aligned with your values and purpose.

If you are looking for support through feeling stuck, burnt out, unhappy, defeated, and wanting to expedite yourself into feeling motivated, fulfilled, determined, and happy, NextGen Insurance Consulting Group offers a few resources to help you through. We offer courses to help you with insurance sales that also focus on a fundamental part of success: mindset. We also have a few consulting options that might work well for you. Reach out to me here, and we can discuss further.

Until Next Time,

Kari Kohal, MBA, AINS

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Disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Please consult with a healthcare professional for any medical concerns or advice.