[00:00]

You have to stop defining yourself by your job. I guarantee you, you have many friends in your life or even neighbors, and you have no idea what they do for work or you know very little. You may know their job title, and that’s it. You don’t talk to them about work. It has nothing to do with who they are. It’s not them. You don’t know them and love them because of their job. Guess what? That works in reverse. There are many people in your life who love you, and their love for you has nothing to do with your job title.

[Intro]

Hello, and welcome to The Career Shakeup Podcast. I’m your host. Kristin Szalajko. I’m a certified professional career coach who specializes in career exploration. I believe everyone deserves a meaningful career they love. I know it can be hard to find that career, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve developed an easy formula to help you identify the right career path for you. Let’s shake up the way you view your career. I’m going to challenge you to look at careers in a brand new way. Whether you’re stuck in a job you don’t like or just starting out on your path, my goal is to empower you to take control of your career.

[01:10]

Alright. Welcome back to The Career Shake Up Podcast. I am Kristin Szalajko, your host. So I’ve been seeing in the news a lot lately, what seems like the buzzword of the month, is quiet quitting. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but Google of course, because I look at one article, Google gives me many articles with the same topic, but I am seeing it all over LinkedIn too.

Quiet quitting. What that is, is when an employee basically says I’ve had enough and I’m not putting in all this extra time. I’m not going above and beyond, I’m just going to do my normal job. So you just slowly kind of stop giving extra and are just doing maybe not the bare minimum, but just the basic requirements of your job. So that’s quite quitting. That’s the buzz phrase of the month. It has kind of made me laugh because I knew I was going to do this episode and it fits in so well.

So just to kind of catch you up in case you’re new here or you’ve missed the last few episodes, we have been talking about the six key elements to a good career. So the formula for finding a career is…there’s a few steps. The first one is to figure out your why, which I talk about, I think clear back in episode two. It’s one of the first few episodes, so go back and listen to that if you haven’t. And then the next step after figuring out your why is to understand the six key elements. All six of these things play together. Each is a puzzle piece that fits together and if you have all six, you’re going to be really happy at work. So we’ve been breaking down those key elements.

[02:41]

So the key element for today is to fit with the rest of your life. I want to start off by telling a story. There’s someone I know in my life that’s just near and dear to me, but I’m going to change this person’s name for protection. But this person’s story is so many people’s story. I’m going to call this person Luke. Luke has fastly climbed the corporate ladder from a young age. He just got right in there, has climbed the ladder and is doing excellent. He’s in his 30s already and in a VP position. But from the outside he looks very successful, right? He’s got a great marriage, got a big house, got a great job, he can travel all the time, his life appears great. But what’s happening is he’s giving so much of himself to work that he’s burning out and fast. Some days he’s working from seven in the morning to ten at night, or seven in the morning to seven at night. He’s working so many hours during the week that by the weekend he’s so burned out. But because the weekend is all the only time he has to see family and friends, he’s going out to see family and friends and he’s never really getting time to decompress and relax, and it’s killing him.

And I think this is the typical corporate story. We tend to give all we have to work. I think it’s why quiet quitting is becoming a thing and we need to take a step back, and we need to remember that we’re not just our job. So I don’t know if this is your story, but if it’s not your story, you know somebody whose story this is.

There’s a lot that’s demanded of us in leadership of roles, and I totally acknowledge that, and I get overtime. But when it starts to consume who you are, that can be a problem, right? In my opinion, if one person has to regularly give 60 to 80 hours in a job, you have one person doing two people’s job, that’s too much. One person should not have to, on a regular basis, work that many hours. And if that’s what’s required, you’re asking too much of them. You need to bring another person on because the money you’re saving by that salary is killing that person. And it’s not fair and it’s not right. And you’re going to lose that employee anyway because eventually, they’re going to burn out.

[04:50]

So the reason we need work-life balance is because we have other roles in our life to fulfill. You are not just an employee or a boss. You’re a spouse, a son, a daughter, you’re parents, you are a friend, a neighbor, wherever – fill in the blank. We all have many roles, and you are so much more than just your job. And work shouldn’t be hurting those roles.

Of course, you’re going to spend more time at work than you do in your other roles. I should say, of course, that most traditional jobs you do, right? And that’s okay, but not to the point where it’s hurting all your other relationships. You also have other interests. You have hobbies, you have passions, and you have things you like to do. You need to make time for those. You need to be a well-rounded person.

[05:46]

And if work is consuming everything you have, where you can’t give any other part of yourself, that’s not good. Right? That’s why we need work-life balance. Now, work-life balance looks different for different people, and depending on your personality and depending on the role…Adam Grant, (Whom I think I’ve mentioned before. I’m a big fan. I follow him a lot.)  has mentioned there are kind of two types of people. There are segmentors and there are integrators. Now, a segmentor is someone whose work-life is very separate. Work is in one bucket, life is in the other. And they don’t mesh. They don’t overlap at all. Some people like their nine to five. They shut the door, work is done, and they move on. That’s how my day job is. I’m a paralegal in my day job, I do, I clock in, do my job, clock out, and I never touch it again until I sit down to clock in again. I don’t check my email. Nothing is required of me after hours. I don’t even really talk about work very much. It’s just over. I’m now in mom mode, right, when I’m out of work.

That’s okay.

Or there’s integrators. These are people who are okay with work and life sort of blending together. They kind of overlap, and these are the more nontraditional roles. When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t really have a nine to five. You tend to be doing work all the time, but that gives you the ability to go to your kids play in the middle of the afternoon, or you’re talking about work at dinner. And your job is a regular part of the conversation.

So you just kind of need to know which one of those people are you, because there’s not really a right or wrong, right? I actually have both. So, like I said, my day job is more segmenting, and I’m more of an integrator with this job, with this podcast. I talk about it often. I kind of just squeeze it into my day and squeeze it into my evenings and kind of just fits into the cracks of my life, which I actually really enjoy. So I always thought I was more of a segmenting type person until I had this. And I’m like, oh, you know what? I can maybe do both. It just depends on the type of job.

[07:31]

Another thing to consider when you think about having this work-life balance is just travel and work hours. That seems pretty obvious. You just need to know how much travel are you willing to do? Are you willing to travel once a quarter, once a year, never once a week? And if you are traveling, are you ggoingfor a couple of days? Are you going for the whole week? What does that look like? And how much are you willing to do? How much are you willing to sacrifice for your family and friends or is travel just all you want to do? So you’re all in.

And then, of course, work hours. Some people may have someone with a special ability at home, and you need to be working evenings so that you’re home during the day to take care of that person. Our life circumstances all change, so you just need to consider what kind of hours and travel will work with your job.

[08:21]

The last thing I really want to drive home here is that you are not your job. I got a little choked up, actually, while I was writing the outline for this because I just know so many people are so soaked into their job, and their job is their identity, and they don’t know who they are. If they were to change. And this sometimes limits us from changing careers or taking opportunities, because suddenly our whole identity is going to be changed.

And you can’t blame us or others for feeling that way. I mean, it’s been ingrained in us since we were tiny children. What do you want to be when you grew up? What do you want to be when you grew up? And so we have been taught from such a young age, but what we are is so important and our job is who we are, right? What do you want to be? Not what do you want to do?

I do paralegal work. Technically, I am a paralegal, but that’s not all of me. That’s not who I am. You have to stop defining yourself by your job. I guarantee you you have many friends in your life or your neighbors, and you have no idea what they do for work. Or you know very little. You may know their job title and that’s it. You don’t talk to them about work. Work has nothing to do with who they are. It’s not them. You don’t know them and love them because of their job.

Guess what? That works in reverse. There are many people in your life who love you, and their love for you has nothing to do with your job title. I wish I could scream this from the top of the mountain because really, honestly, so many of us are defining ourselves by your job, and that’s so limiting and it hurts other areas of your life.

So I want you to do the work necessary to discover who you are separate from your job. Maybe you have to go to therapy. Maybe you just need to start talking to loved ones. Or I have a worksheet called your Why, and it’s kind of figuring out why you’re working, what it is you want out of a career, and that will help you separate, this is what I want in life and here’s how my job can play into that. But it’s not all of that. Does that make sense?

Because when we really think and consider when we pass on from this life, our job is now over. It doesn’t matter anymore, right? But I have been to, unfortunately, quite a few funerals in my lifetime. I don’t recall anybody’s funeral where we were talking about all the great things they did at work.

We weren’t talking about all the spreadsheets they created, all the money they saved the company. That’s not what happened. I mean, for example, my dad owns a small business. I promise you, when he dies, I will not be saying at his funeral, man, he cleaned a mean window. I’m going to be talking about how much of a caring father that he was because that’s what matters at the end of the day.

Same with my mom. She’s an amazing organizer, and that’s part of who she is. But her admin skills is not the most important part of my mom. The most important part of my mom is the fact that she’s caring and she’s always looking out for others, and she always wants to make a difference and help other people. That’s what matters. That’s who you are.

[11:33]

Find a job that fits with your life. Find a job that helps you feel like you can be your best self at work, and your best self at home. And part of a job fitting with your life is allowing you to be yourself at work. Now, if you have to change your entire personality at work, it’s not a great fit. You’re going to feel fake. You’re going to feel like a phony, and it’s going to wear on you over time, right? If you have tattoos, but you’re not allowed to show tattoos at work, and you have to wear long sleeve shirts all the time to cover up your tattoo, then you live in Florida, that’s a little miserable. So think about that.

Maybe your personality just doesn’t fit into this particular corporate culture. Do you really want to be a fake person all day at work? Or do you want to be able to be yourself? So that’s something to consider as well.

When it comes to work-life balance, you have your life, but at work, you still want to feel like yourself.

So that’s the last step. That’s the last key element. All these things work together. Find a job that’s engaging. Find a job you’re good at. Find a great company to work for, make a difference in the world, meet your basic needs, and find a job that fits with the rest of your life. You can put all those things together. You’re going to find a job that’s just awesome.

So going forward, I’m going to talk to you about how…now that you know the key elements, I’m going to talk to you about how to narrow down your opportunities and how to actually figure out, now, I know that stuff now, what do I do with it? How do I actually pick a job? So we’ll talk about that in the future.

So thank you for joining me today. You can find the show notes on my website, www.kristinszalajko.com/episode12. And I’m going to put some links to a couple of three things. I have a brainstorming guide that just walks walk you through each of the key elements and asks you questions about each of the elements. You can kind of figure out what it is you in particular are looking for because the things you need are different than the things I need.

So it’s really important that you identify what the key elements mean for you, so that’s going to help you do that. In addition, I’m going to link up to the worksheet I mentioned about your why and figuring out what it is you’re looking for. So those two things should really help you get on the right track to finding a career that you love.

All right, well, thank you for joining me today and I’ll see you next time.

[Outro]

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you found value as you listened. If there’s anyone you feel could use this episode, please go ahead and share it with them. Also, you’re likely listening to this on the go. When you find a quiet moment could you be so kind to leave me a review? That will help others find me as well. Be sure to come back for our next episode. Same time. Same place. Have a great week!