Is Career Path or Life Path the Priority?

Workers are starting more to question the path their life is taking. In the past, work was the first consideration and it filled everyone’s days. There were few time saving devices nor technology to make us more productive other than perhaps the assembly line.

Why did labor saving devices create more time pressure? If you can get through tasks faster, you have more time for other tasks. Now you are faced with which ones to choose. Now if you are accomplishing more in a day, the original task is just one of many you could accomplish. Now you have to prioritize.

Efficiencies Started the Considerations of How We Spend Our Time

Consider one simple efficiency, the fax machine. I remember when an attorney showed me this new device. He could send correspondence in a minute that would have taken days to arrive. Now there is pressure on the other side to respond quicker than they would normally have. Then comes the expectation that they will respond quicker. Letters create the simple haze of the sender not knowing when it will arrive so allowing more time for a response.

Maybe emails became the efficiency that ruined everyone’s nervous system. Now a sender knows it arrives in seconds. Unless you are not looking at your device, there is no reason not to respond soon. In fact, the sender may feel slighted that you did not respond or decide they will work with someone who does respond faster. Maybe the email sent to competitors is a test of who will respond first.

Most everything has taken this course. There was never a big rush for delivery. Why do we have to have things now in one day? Life has not become easier, it has become a pressure cooker because we can and are expected to get more done in a day. Everyone expects that of us.

Many Negatives Have Been Created from Us Being More Efficient

Now we have overwhelm and burnout as symptoms of the modern age. We should add opioids, depression, overeating, anger, gambling, shopping, and other abuses as ways to cope or find happiness brain chemicals because the normal way of life is too stressful.

Now more people are considering their lives versus their careers. What are their values? When I was young, we didn’t have great expectations of happiness although it seemed it might be a reward of accomplishment. Today, workers consider happiness a priority.

Another way of looking at it is if we know we are going to work most of our lives, how much suffering are we willing to endure? If we are sacrificing our health and using all our time to survive, is having more material goods worth the sacrifice? Now we can start drawing lines in the sand. We have to provide for our families, but if we have enough, will we take on more responsibility or invest more time to have more than we need?

What Are the Values Between Choosing Life and Careers?

What is more important, a career goal or a life goal? What are our values? Are we driven by ambition to find out who we are and what we can accomplish? Are we in a race to accumulate more than others in goods, power, or reputation? Yes, are we engaged in a game of climbing the ladder without the thought of the more personal consequences?

This is why the concept of thriving has become important. It indicates we are achieving and coping. It implies balance. It implies we are happy with our choices. It doesn’t have a time element for achieving or breaking records. These may be values that differ with people. One is thriving because he is progressing so fast and another is thriving because he likes the slower pace of his progress.

One person is thriving because he gets to work so many hours on his passion, and another is thriving because he gets to go home early. Employers are caught with the conundrum of helping workers thrive and also achieving their organization’s goals. How much time does an organization need from a worker or how much does a worker’s talent offset the amount of time he wants to work?

How much time does an organization need from a worker based on the salary the worker expects? When is the worker willing to take less salary for more personal time? How does an organization create the decision process to support workers and meet their own goals?

In this age of silent quitting and job-hopping working congruently with the shortage of highly skilled workers, there are a lot of dynamics in play. An organization has budgets, but it also has competition and consumer expectations. An organization has many stakeholders expecting performance, humanity, and care for the environment. Workers also share these demands on organizations and often make their career choices based on who meets their own expectations

It is a never-ending challenge these days to meet so many expectations.

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As a Thriving Worker Consultant, I can engage in conversations with employers on how to begin the process of helping workers thrive and reach peak performance. It begins with a conversation to see how far an organization is willing to go to change the culture for workers.

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