Leadership expert Simon Sinek says if you're hoping to find the perfect job, you're setting yourself up to fail
TED
Okay, so it wouldn't be the catchiest tagline ever. But it would be some refreshing real talk. As in: There's no one, perfect role for you on this site - but any of these gigs could potentially become the perfect job for you.
Sinek is a leadership expert and the bestselling author of multiple books, including most recently, "Leaders Eat Last." When he visited the Business Insider office in July for a Facebook Live interview, he compared finding a fulfilling job to finding a fulfilling relationship:
"A great career, a fulfilling career, is like a great relationship. You don't find love, either. You don't look under a rock and be like, 'Oh, I found the person I can love.' That's not how it works.
"You find somebody who really loves you for you and you work hard every single day to stay in love. It's not something you can take for granted. After you fall in love, you still have to keep working at it. …
"Careers are the same. You have to work hard to find it and be like, 'Oh my god, I really love it here,' but then the work continues to stay in love [with your job]. It's not something you find; it's not some miracle thing."
What Sinek's essentially talking about here is "job crafting," a term psychologists use to describe the process of molding your job to become more meaningful to you. You can do that by changing up your daily responsibilities, or by changing your perception of your role.
Sinek's insights also recall the words of behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who previously told Business Insider that people mistakenly believe they need to find the ideal job. "Look for a job that is in the general direction of your skills and passion," Ariely said, and then make it fit better.
So Sinek's observations aren't exactly new. But these ideas are worth repeating because most of us have been guilty of either looking for the perfect job and getting frustrated because we can't find it or taking a job and then getting frustrated when it doesn't turn out to be as perfect as we thought.
Sinek said this kind of passive attitude can contribute to feeling lost or unsatisfied in your career:
"If you think it's that way" - i.e. if you think the perfect job will miraculously appear - "then you're going to keep going from job to job to job to job, and unfortunately you'll never find what you're looking for."
Watch the full interview:
- In second consecutive week of decline, forex kitty drops $2.28 bn to $640.33 bn
- SBI Life Q4 profit rises 4% to ₹811 crore
- IMD predicts severe heatwave conditions over East, South Peninsular India for next five days
- COVID lockdown-related school disruptions will continue to worsen students’ exam results into the 2030s: study
- India legend Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 ambassador
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market