The connection between your natural inclination, career choice and happiness.
I recently read a book by Jessica Pryce Jones in which she talks about her research and findings into happiness at work and how to maximize your psychological capital for success.
It is an interesting read. I recommend that if you are able to get it, read it and re-read it. It offered such interesting insights into what leads to a happiness at work in 5 clear components.
- Contribution
- Conviction
- Culture
- Commitment
- Confidence
While they are all very important, it mostly focused on those who were already working and trying to find their balance on the happiness scale. But what about those who haven’t started their careers yet? Younger millenials and Generation Z?
Truth be told, a large percentage of them do not even know where to start. They do not know what career to pursue. They are also joining the workforce at a time when non-traditional careers are present for them as viable careers. Occupations that did not exist in the last 25 years are now very marketable careers and if not to make it even harder. Environmental changes, societal changes and technology will be introducing more new jobs and forcing many others to become redundant. Dell Technologies said in 2017 that 87% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have not yet been invented.
Big Data a branch of Artificial Intelligence and many other new technologies will be disrupting the world in the next coming years and they will be disrupting career choices and the level of happiness in the career choice.
Combining the nature of Generation Z/Y and the technological change, the world is about to experience some changes. Yes, the younger generation are flexible to changes and according to research they are also future oriented.
They are also very interested in getting careers that are aligned to their values and passions which can be a little bit limiting when pursuing higher education in it. For instance in Africa, there are few colleges and universities that offer programs that are lean more on the creative side. A majority of the young high school creatives graduates have to make do with what they have; get into programs they are not particularly excited about just to get a degree and make mum and dad happy.
Parents on the other and are constantly pushing their children to pursue careers they would have wanted for themselves or which they perceive has a good market and their children are likely to get a job quicker. Which truth be told, forces many people into careers they loathe. They just go with the flow which, to be honest, is a horrible way to live life.
Happiness is rarely ever given the same importance as other factors when deciding which career to pursue. Factors such as the labour market estimates, interest in the subject and your ability are always the first to be considered. Which is good because without doing so, we will have many accountants who hate anything related to math and struggle to do math and have no whatsoever interest in uplearning their accounting skills. This spells doom for an employer and therefore higher standards will be set by them and very few people will get to practice their accounting. In case you haven’t noticed, misery loves company and it is a full round circle to doom.
Research on Gen Z has shown that people from this age group are expressive and will not stay where they do not feel their best. This also spells doom for companies and economies. While some companies have tried to stop the high number of employee turnover by introducing “trendy” cultures and practices, if employee happiness is not given importance when selecting a career, trendy cultures and practices will not do as much to improve performance. You know what will? Placing employees in divisions and departments they are naturally inclined to. Go beyond the surface — the materialistic layer and really unearth your greatest assests.
So how does someone who has never had a career know what will make them happy when they select a career? What happens to people who experience happiness in a variety of careers? How do they choose one? and how does a young Gen Z know that the career that brings them happiness will exist in the long run? What if the career does not actually exist?
To tackle the first question, I will talk of a concept I had mentioned earlier “natural inclination”. Whether you are spiritual or not, you may have come across a saying that every single person on earth has a purpose they need to accomplish on earth. Living is not existing, living is not a sleep-awake pattern with food and earning a living thrown in the sequence. Living is using your existence for a higher purpose than just your existence.
It is easier to swim in the direction of a river tide than against it. The force will push you closer to where you need to be. In one of his earlier interviews, Jay Z simplified this concept better when discussing his music success in which he said “ I was taught in my family to believe that anything worth having, you had to work extremely hard for but rap came easy for me.” Guess what?The now billionaire is happy he did what came easy for him. His music was the first successful venture that opened doors for him into his other numerous ventures.
Do what comes easy for you. Follow your natural inclination.
Does speaking and persuading people come easy for you? Does figuring out complex things come easy for you?Let it be the first thing that you write down when you are trying to map a career. That is your natural inclination.
