“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

David Bowie

A month ago, I decided I needed to go a little deeper into my career. I wanted more room to grow, more opportunities to make an impact with my work. An opportunity came up, and I took it.

Within a day or two of starting my new role, I felt like I was drowning. I had a ton of work, so much to learn, and a huge responsibility with major consequences if I messed up.

A few days later, I was in a one-hour, virtual meeting with an important customer. By the halfway point, I began to zone out. I had no idea what people were talking about. I started to panic, and I felt the urge to shut off my computer and cry. I managed to make it through to the end, but I was convinced I had made a huge mistake and was ready to quit.

Normally, I blog about experiences in retrospect, so I have the benefit of knowing that things came out OK.

I started writing this post weeks ago. I thought by the end of the month, I would once again be smiling into my rear-view mirror. But I’m not OK. I still feel overwhelmed. I still have a lot of self-doubts. I’m still scared.

However, I’m gradually starting to feel better thanks to a few important decisions I’ve made along the way.

Work-life balance is a choice, not an obligation. I’ve written a lot about all of the different activities I’ve become immersed in over the past year or so–blogging, Aikido, Spanish lessons, etc. Soon after I entered my new role, I felt like the life I had built was falling apart. If I kept all of those other commitments, I would never be able to catch up on my work and would feel like a failure. But if I put in the time I needed to at work, I would feel guilty about all of the other things I’d have to sacrifice.

My solution was to give myself permission to let my life be out of balance for a while. Not only did I have more work, but I had to learn how to do it. That takes time. Once I made this decision, I could just tell people I might not be around as much as I used to be. They were all very understanding, which took away a lot of the pressure. Now I can put in the extra time and hopefully, at some point soon I’ll feel like I know what I’m doing and can get it done faster.

I don’t have to know everything. In my old role, I often felt like I could follow my instincts and I’d be able to produce quality work. Now, not only do I have a lot to learn, but I’ve been afraid that if I admit to some of the things I don’t know, people will think I’m not qualified for my job. This is a classic case of “impostor syndrome.”

But I’ve decided I’d be better off asking for help than pretending I don’t need it. And every time I asked someone for assistance, I left the conversation feeling a little more confident and self-sufficient.

I also learned that there were some things I simply wasn’t expected to know. For example, in that meeting that sent me into a panic, there were plenty of experts on the subject matter. My function wasn’t to be an expert on the topic but to set the agenda and make sure we accomplished what we set out to do by the end of the meeting.

This realization was a huge relief. By leaving some responsibilities in other people’s capable hands, I started to become more comfortable carrying my own load.

Quitting is always an option. Although it can be difficult to try something new, I often find it even harder to stop. Whether it’s a job, a relationship, or some kind of volunteer work; the more I put into it, the more I feel like I need to keep going even if I’m no longer enjoying myself.

This notion is sometimes referred to as the “sunk cost fallacy,” the idea that once you’ve invested money (or time or emotion or something else of value) into something, it would be a waste to let it go.

I’ve already sacrificed a lot by taking on this role. But if I keep pouring myself into my work and things don’t get better, it would be much like continuing to bet money on the same number on a roulette wheel even though I keep losing. Sometimes the best way to stop losing is to walk away.

I’ve heard that it typically takes about 90 days to transition into a new role. I’m still not convinced that I’m in the right place, but I’m beginning to feel a bit more optimistic. I hope that by the time I’ve reached that three-month milestone, I’ll feel more in control of both my work and my life.

If not, I think Mr. Bowie would have understood if I decided to towel myself off and find a new place to swim.

If you’ve gone through a significant career change, how did you feel when you started and how did it turn out? If you’re thinking about making such a change, what can you do to improve your chances of success?

This will be my third and final–for now–post about my search for a more fulfilling career.

For my first post in this series, I interviewed three Product Managers and learned that although they shared a title, each found job satisfaction by applying his distinct style and interests to his work.

For part two, I became aware that the simple act of helping one coworker every day helped me feel like my job mattered.

This post takes this theme a step further by answering the question: can I find fulfillment in my current work simply by changing my approach to my job?

To answer this question, I wrote a list of the values and skills I most want to nurture in my work, then answered the following questions about each value and skill:

• How do I feel constrained from using [value/skill] in my work?
• What’s within my control to make this situation better?
• What’s outside my control?

I came up with a long list of both values and skills, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll share just three values.

Value #1: Connection

I enjoy my work more when I feel connected with my coworkers. I found this challenging prior to COVID-19 because of minimal opportunities to hang out with coworkers outside of work. It’s now been many months since I’ve seen anyone in person, and most of the people I work with don’t even turn on their cameras for Zoom calls.

I can’t stop COVID, but here are a few things I can try:

• Learn how to improve my interpersonal communication skills and practice with coworkers
• Turn on my camera in every meeting
• Invite colleagues to virtual lunch

Value #2: Growth

I want to feel like my job is an opportunity for me to grow. However, as a contractor, no one is going to invest time or money into helping me develop my skills or climb the corporate ladder.

That doesn’t mean I can’t work on myself, though. There are skills and knowledge areas I can improve upon that will make me better at my job. All I have to do is find time to learn and practice.

Value #3: Service

The most rewarding part of my job is when I can help my customers solve problems. Unfortunately, on my latest project, someone else has been assigned the role of “business liaison,” so my contact with my customers is very limited.

However, one responsibility I originally thought would be tedious has turned out to be an area where I thrive. When a colleague resigned, I inherited his role as the administrator for a software application. Although the work itself is pretty straightforward–responding to support tickets and granting people access to content–it gives me a chance to get to know people from different departments and try to make their day a little better. There is always an opportunity for improvement here, from closing tickets more quickly to writing clearer emails.

My job description, reimagined

Based on the above analysis, I am now rewriting my job description to include the following bullet points:

• Develop interpersonal relationships with colleagues to build stronger connections, boost morale, and foster collaboration
• Create and fulfill personal challenges to expand my skillset and deepen my knowledge of subject matter relevant to my job
• Strive for continuous improvement in communication, time to closure, and other aspects of customer service

Through this exercise, I can avoid feeling like a victim of circumstances beyond my control and instead devise creative ways to make my situation better. Whether this will be enough to make me want to stay remains to be seen. I may still seek a position somewhere where there are more opportunities for the experiences I value; like connection, growth, and service. But if I can feel more positive about the work I do in the meantime, it’s worth it.

Do you find your job fulfilling? If not, what do you feel is missing? What can you do to make your situation better without having to quit?

I ended my last post with a hypothesis on how to improve my professional life:

If I consciously choose to spend every workday trying to understand the people I work with and find ways to help them, I will achieve a sense of purpose and fulfillment in my job.

My conclusion: after adjusting my approach to the work I do and experimenting for a month, my job feels more meaningful. However, I’m also more aware of what’s missing.

Learning about “user experience” improved my experience.

The first part of my experiment led me into the world of Product Design, often referred to as “user experience design” or simply “UX.” Wikipedia defines UX design as “the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.” In other words, instead of creating things in a vacuum, focus on how you can create a better experience for your audience.

Digging deeper, I sought to understand the fundamentals of design. A quick search on “LinkedIn Learning” led me to the fascinating documentary, “Dieter Rams: Principles of Good Design.” Rams gained fame through his work in industrial design, but the principles he devised are, in my mind, universal.

According to Rams, good design is . . .

1. innovative
2. useful
3. aesthetic
4. understandable
5. unobtrusive
6. honest
7. long-lasting
8. thorough down to the last detail
9. environmentally friendly
10. as little design as possible

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this documentary and had mentally adopted Rams as my mentor within about the first 15 minutes.

I also recognized that I didn’t have to quit my job and become a product designer before I could put these principles into practice. I could start to apply them immediately.

For example, I began to use them as a checklist when crafting and proofreading emails. Useful: Is my purpose clear, and does every word serve that purpose? Honest: Am I sure every statement is true? Thorough: Is there any detail that could be misinterpreted? Aesthetic: Is the layout easy on the eyes? As little design as possible: How much can I cut out while still achieving my purpose?

When I’m busy at work, it can be tempting to compose and send emails as quickly as possible. But I’ve found that when I put in the extra time to apply Rams’s principles, it makes life easier for my readers. And when my emails are sent to dozens to thousands of people, the benefits are exponential.

Helping others helped me.

In addition to focusing on user experience, I gave myself a challenge wherein each day at work for 30 days, I would consciously do something to help one of my coworkers.

On some days, I actively created work for myself by asking people if they needed help or searching through our online discussion forums for opportunities to provide insight.

On other days, I was simply more aware of my work ethic. When I attend meetings, instead of multitasking until someone asks me a direct question, I try to listen actively and contribute to the conversation. When a customer asks me how to do something, I write step-by-step instructions and test them on myself before I share them.

In either case, by being mindful of these helpful acts and sometimes even writing them down, I began to realize that even though the work I do may not save the world, it’s still making a positive difference.

My quest for fulfillment is far from over.

This month-long experiment has shown me that job satisfaction isn’t just about what I do for a living but how I do it.

But although I feel better about my work than I did a month ago, I’m also more aware of the limitations of my current role. For example, there have been times when I had an important question or piece of information to share with a customer, but instead of being able to meet with them directly, I had to go through an intermediary. Sometimes, this dynamic led to the message being lost in translation or just plain lost.

This and other frustrating scenarios have led to new questions.

What am I good at, and to what extent are those strengths needed and valued in my current role?

What do I want to learn, and to what extent does my current role allow for that growth?

What other conditions help me feel good about myself and my job?

Can I change these circumstances simply by changing my approach, or do I need to seek a new role or a new environment?

To help me gain clarity, I’m giving myself a new challenge for next month:

1. Identify the conditions I feel I need in order to make my work more meaningful.
2. Imagine what my current role would look like if all of those conditions were present.
3. Begin to manifest this new, more fulfilling career by rewriting my own job description.

The saga continues . . .

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I’ve spent my entire career trying to find a job that gives me a sense of purpose. A job that isn’t just that thing I do to earn a living but is part of who I am. A job that makes me light up when people ask me, “What do you do?” A job I’d want to write about in my blog.

Often, when I start a new job, I’m full of optimism. But the longer I spend at a company, the more my rose-colored glasses turn to grey.

When I was hired to work at a major newspaper, I felt like I had won the lottery. I’m a writer. These were my people. But I wasn’t hired to write; I was brought on to help us comply with financial regulations. While others were creating stories or printing or delivering the paper, the best thing my efforts could create was an audit report with the words, “No issues found.”

When I was hired by a software company, I felt like my work was much closely tied to the company’s purpose. I helped their clients streamline and automate complex and repetitive business processes. But serving big law firms–their primary clients–didn’t feel like a rewarding use of my abilities.

Based on these and other experiences, I’d reached the conclusion that in order for a job to be “meaningful” for me, it would need to meet the following two criteria:

1. The company mission had to be genuinely focused on helping people.
2. My job had to directly contribute to achieving that mission.

“If I could just find the right role at the right company,” I’d tell myself, “I would finally feel like I’m doing something that matters.”

Once again, as I’m writing this post, I’m working at a job that had the potential to fulfill me but has not lived up to my expectations.

Usually, when this happens, I try to find a job that’s a better fit. I search the job boards for good opportunities, spend hours tailoring my resume and cover letter to each position, and apply. Eventually, I land a new job, only to discover that it feels much different in practice than it looked in writing.

This time, I wanted to try something different.

After doing a lot of introspective work to figure out what I want in my next job, I decided to hire a career coach. She helped me figure out what kinds of roles I might find more fulfilling. Then we picked a role to explore: Product Management. As a Product Manager, I would be accountable for the creation and improvement of products. All I needed to do was find a company that created products I could stand behind and I’d meet my definition of “meaningful work.”

But instead of immediately searching for and applying to Product Manager jobs, my first step was to actually talk to other people who do this kind of work.

Initially, my coach connected me with three different people. Each one gave me a new perspective.

My first interviewee came from a highly technical background. He walked me through his day-to-day responsibilities and helped me recognize that I already had a lot of the experience I’d need to succeed in this type of role. My main concern arose when he explained that he spends about half his time talking to engineers. I had spent two decades working in IT, but I wanted to focus more on people and less on technology.

The next person I talked to came from a business background. During his many years of product management, he had studied concepts such as product design and social anthropology to help him gain a more human perspective on how products fit into people’s lives. He showed me that there are different styles of product management. I have a degree in anthropology and want to learn about product design, so his style felt like one I’d like to emulate.

Finally, I talked to someone with a degree in philosophy. He said he doesn’t care that much what his team is creating as long as it’s ethical. Instead, he focuses his energy on getting to know each of his team members and learning their motivations and fears. In this way he can help them feel less like disposable resources and more like what they do is important to the success of the team.

Through these conversations, a switch flipped in my head.

First, I realized that if I want to find a job that’s a good fit for me, I can’t rely solely on job descriptions. To get a deep understanding of what it’s like to perform these jobs, it’s important to talk to people who have done this type of work.

Second, I learned that even though a job may carry similar responsibilities from one company to another, each person can mold the job to suit their own style and be successful whether they have a background in technology, business, or philosophy.

Last, I realized that in order for my work to be fulfilling, I don’t need to have the perfect job at the perfect company and build a product that will save the world. I can find meaning in my work by simply being mindful of how I approach my job and my colleagues each day.

After these epiphanies, I’ve decided to take a step back from exploring product management and spend the next month focusing on my day-to-day approach to my work.

As inspired by my second product manager interview, I aim to learn about the principles of product design and see how viewing my work with an eye towards design enriches my work experience.

In addition, my third interviewee motivated me to explore how I can be a better leader for my team. Based on my research, I came up with some behaviors I can practice each day:

• Spend as much time asking questions and listening as I do sharing my perspective.
• Give positive feedback to and about my teammates.
• Take time to understand their needs and concerns and offer to help when appropriate.
• When things go wrong, focus on what I could have done better.

Through these efforts, I hope to gain more clarity on how I can find a sense of purpose in my work. I plan to share my results in my next post.