Work that does not match your expectations and skills
We are different. We have various requirements, skills and talents. This is why it is so important to know yourself, your needs, your strengths and weaknesses. By doing work that doesn't bring us joy, improve our competences, or develop our innate talents, we burn out faster and are more likely to become frustrated. Can you imagine a person who works as a flight attendant, but hates changing places, working among people and has no language skills at all? Neither can we ?. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to fall into the trap of work dictated by habits and repetitive actions, so it is worth verifying your competences in the first place. The Gallup test, i.e. the CliftonStrengths survey, which identifies dominant talents from a list of 34 verifiable ones, can be helpful in discovering your talents. The top ten that are revealed in the survey results will tell you what career path to take and what job you had better avoid.
Unplanned activity
In professional development, as in bodybuilding, you need a plan. Firstly, reinvent yourself and have a vision of where you want to be in one, five or ten years. Secondly, have a good plan for annual, monthly and even weekly responsibilities at work. By planning activities, we can more easily estimate how long something will take. Effective time management and planning for the projects that await you is the best thing you can do for yourself: you then have a sense of control over unrelenting deadlines and, most importantly, a sense of self-efficacy – at work and beyond. So plan ahead, list things to do, group them into categories, divide responsibilities by day of the week or time of day. Then you won't feel like you're running out of time, or worse, that the project is overwhelming you.
No goals set
Goals drive each of us to act. Just listen to athletes, who probably know best how important, along with competition, is a sense of purpose. Professional goals are just as important as those in your personal life — and it's not at all about making work your whole life. The point is to get the most satisfaction out of what you do and how you do it, and accomplishing your goals will be enormously rewarding and will boost your self-esteem. By setting goals for yourself, you don't stagnate for years, but instead get a real opportunity to grow professionally. The end of the year is a good time to ask yourself what you've accomplished at this point, and what you still need to do in the near and long term to get to your dream finish line.
Fear of the new
What's new is generally unfamiliar and therefore causes anxiety, evasion and a tendency to defer decisions over time. It is not always easy to change existing habits, location or nature of work, even when we subconsciously feel that the place we are currently in is doing us harm rather than enriching us with new knowledge or professional challenges. Unfortunately, by allowing ourselves to “nurture” this fear, stagnate and put the brakes on our own aspirations, we close ourselves off to what is new – and probably much better for ourselves. Remember that without change there is no progress! And the anxiety usually goes away quickly once you get used to the new situation. ?
An employer who forgets the needs of employees
Can employer hinder our professional growth? Unfortunately, yes. Our professional development and performance are greatly affected by whether we have the opportunity to take intellectually stimulating courses and develop ourselves outside of work by focusing on our own interests. Professional development experts agree that access to employee benefits affects the opportunity for self-fulfillment. A report by Pracuj.pl titled Benefits, or What Motivates Employees* found that training was important to 70 percent of respondents, 62 percent appreciated access to private healthcare, whereas access to sports cards was close behind, in the fourth place. We want to feel valued and have a chance for self-fulfillment, and at the same time we are aware that our health, access to training or language classes definitely determine how we perceive the workplace. A wide range of benefits and a friendly working environment in which we can feel appreciated make work stop being just a source of income and become an inspiring space for development, which brings us satisfaction and fulfillment.
Bibliography
*Benefits in the Eyes of Employees survey conducted by Pracuj.pl among its users, N= 2319, December 2017.