What is the real goal of having a career anyway?

It’s a topic of conversation that comes up time and time again: SUCCESS.

It should be noted that the definition of success is subjective.

There are some people that are perfectly content on that “traditional” path of success, from getting a degree to landing a job that pays for a fairly decent lifestyle. They get promoted and continue working, perfectly content with their progress.

Or maybe they don’t even get that promotion, yet are still perfectly content with the life and career path they’ve chosen.

Then, there are those people that start to lose interest in their work and even with a promotion (and raise!), they still can’t help but feel like their career has turned into a J-O-B.

It’s become a chore to get out of bed to go and “work” at a place that previously held so much promise, but now holds only daydreams for something better.

What’s better? It could be anything, anywhere…anywhere but where they’re at right now.

If this sounds familiar, don’t sweat it just yet.  There is a light at the end of that dark tunnel that you’ve gone down.

The problem isn’t you.

From the day that you started your career, you have continued to learn and grow. You’ve evolved in your role at the organization. The problem is the organization hasn’t shifted the same way you have- the work that you have been doing is no longer aligned with the person you’ve become as you’ve grown in your career.

As you pick up new skills and add more years of experience under your belt, you learn more about what you love about your job and what you could really do without. You begin to look for more work that aligns with what you value.

These little micro-pivots in what you look for in the work that you do help you along your career journey. These shifts in your values shouldn’t be looked at in a negative light. These little shifts bring you incrementally closer to your career goals.

Look at it as an invitation to a bigger path to get to your north star.

If you’re wondering how you’re going to get out of your situation when you’re not even sure what to do next, take it from Lisa and trust that “leaning towards happiness, leaning towards places where you’re already finding flow and satisfaction […] is going to be the best way to start to uncover what direction you’re growing in and what can feel really good for that next step.”

You owe it to yourself to leave your career pain for your career freedom.

If you need help to follow your breadcrumbs to your dream career, visit our career coaching page. Connect with Lisa and she’d be more than happy to help!

About Lisa Lewis

Lisa Lewis, the new HTYC Career Guru, started her career in digital marketing and contemplated going back to school to get into psychology and counseling before finally following her own career breadcrumbs and doing what came naturally to her, which is career coaching.

Here at HTYC, Lisa is involved in all things career change- from her role in the Figure Out What Fits: Career Change Bootcamp, to resume critiques and mock interviews, and also to helping people put all the pieces of their career change puzzle together through one-on-one career coaching. She specializes not only in honing in on your strengths, but also in positioning those strengths for potential employers.

If you want to learn more about our career coaching and other services, head on over to our career coaching page.