Career/Occupation Dimension
"Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it." - Buddha
This week we will be focusing on the first dimension of the Wellness Wheel: Career and Occupation. I challenge you to dive deeper into your Life’s Work to determine what holds meaning to you opposed to the societal paths that have been pre determined for you.
Relating back to the Wellness Wheel, we rate this dimension on a scale of 1-10, one being the lowest, ten being the highest. This is such a broad dimension of a person's experience, yet we generally can rate it fast depending on the happiness we feel towards our jobs. Maybe it's the long hours, coworkers or your efforts are undervalued. Or just maybe this is a dimension that you scored well in, congratulations!
When working on this dimension, it can be helpful to first start with the idea of your Life’s Work. When we think of an artist’s life work, we see a portfolio of art pieces from over the many years. Each piece individually expresses an image from a unique time within their timeline. Relating back to the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, even though each art piece is unique, there is an overall meaning or concept over time. Vincent van Gogh for example created multiple masterpieces in his Life Work, together they represent the triumph of raw emotions, resilience and spiritual passion over profound mental anguish and obscurity.
Now relating back to you and your Life’s Work. Everyday we are creating ideas or pieces of art directly related to our environments and circumstances. When we find we are unhappy in our careers or occupation it can often be the disconnect to our Life’s Work. It can be overwhelming to find all of these answers all at once, which is why reviewing our experiences up to this point and remaining flexible and interested in our intuition can provide amazing insight. A look back into what we have already created along the way with a thorough reflection into how we felt and how they are related can offer a window into what you pursue next.
Here is an example of how this can look. Upon completing the Wellness Wheel, my client, Linda rated her Career and Occupation dimension as two. We begin by visually creating a Life’s Work timeline, in this instance we are using Linda’s previous jobs. In her teens she spent time babysitting, she mentions she loves children. In her 20s, she experienced a difficult divorce and went into the workforce keeping books for a small business. She talks about how difficult this transition was, that her need to pay the bills, to support herself outweighed the desire to find something that could have worked out better. Now in her 30’s Linda has reached new heights in an office position at a bigger company, the money is good, she doesn’t have the fear of reliability like before, but she's not happy.
Diving deeper into Linda’s Life's Work, alongside the things that Linda loves and enjoys, we can find the traits at the core of who she is. Linda realizes that it isn’t necessarily her career that she is dissatisfied with, but the current company and environment. She is proud of her skill level, all of the hard work to get to where she is, but the larger company size doesn't offer the flexibility, impact or company culture that she enjoys, the traits that bring her joy. In very rare cases can someone get up and leave their current job all at once, so small changes over time makes most sense. For Linda, she found other support within her current company, such as co-worker meet ups, to encourage more connection until she feels ready to consider moving to a different company. Always remember small changes that support who we are as a person slowly compound over time. Linda meeting up with co-workers once a week for drinks encourages these relationships inside and outside the workplace, adding enjoyment for her.
Do you regularly spend time reflecting on your life's work?
