As a counselor, I work with a good amount of people questioning career decisions. They look at their jobs and scratch their heads wondering why fulfillment seems so elusive. It was a perfect fit when they interviewed. Now? Not so much. So the questions start coming. Should I change companies? Positions? Careers? Something needs to change, but what isn’t clear.
I’ll ask you to consider this: maybe it's not the job; maybe it's your approach to the job. No, I’m not saying you’re self-sabotaging or foiling your own plans for a good life. What I’m saying is that maybe a different way of doing your work could change the way you enjoy it.
Flow
Have you ever heard of the phrase, “hitting their flow?” Spend enough time in or near sports and it will pop up. I’m an avid runner and some of my peers talk about hitting a “flow state.” It’s where they are so immersed in running that miles go by in what feels like minutes. The funny thing is that this isn’t just athlete shorthand for some cool feeling. It’s actually a well-studied psychological concept.
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced: chick-sent-me-high-ee) was a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago for many years. In the 1970s, he coined the term “flow” to refer to “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”1
You’ve probably experienced this before with a game or a book or a puzzle. One moment you’re participating in the activity, the next it’s 2 AM and you have work in the morning. The activity was just so engrossing that you lost yourself in it. That’s flow. And people chase after that feeling even if they don’t know the term for it. Talk to any extreme sports enthusiast and you’ll likely hear the term or a description like it.
But the problem with all of this is that flow is such an elusive thing. It’s hard to hit a “flow state,” and when it does hit, it's uncontrollable and only present in small areas of our lives.
But what if it were easier to hit than you thought? Well, that’s exactly what Dr. Csikszentmihalyi spent much of his research exploring. And he found some fascinating results.
Much of Dr. Csikszentmihalyi’s research can be boiled down into a single graph. On the y-axis he lists challenges and on the x-axis, skills. Flow happens when one hits a perfect mix of challenge and skill. Get too much of a challenge for your current skillset and you start to feel anxiety. More skill than the challenge needed and you’re in the boredom zone. Mihaly identifies this misplacement on the graph as a major contributor to many of our difficulties with our work. It's also the solution to a good amount of our issues with work—and maybe even those outside of it.
3 Things to Do
If you’re feeling a disconnect with your good job, there are three things Dr. Csikszentmihalyi’s research offers that can help you out.
1. Increase the challenge
If you’re finding yourself frequently bored with your work, you might find yourself more engaged and in the flow by taking on more challenging work. You can take on a new project, offer help to another colleague, or ask your manager for a little bit more. I know it sounds counterintuitive to ask for more from work you’re not enjoying, but it could be enough of a bump to get you out of boredom and into flow.
Another option would be to increase the challenge of your current job. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi tells the story of the happiest factory worker he’d ever met. His secret? Treat every day as a challenge to do the job faster and more efficiently than the day before. Instead of taking on extra work, kick your current challenge up a notch.
2. Increase your skill
Your problem might be the opposite of an under-challenging job. You could find yourself nervous to go in each day despite wanting to like your job. You’re likely in the anxiety zone, the challenge outpacing your skills. In this situation, the suggestion Dr. Csikszentmihalyi would offer would be to raise your skill level up to the challenge.
Are presentations making you sweat? Take a public speaking class. Trouble keeping things straight? Look into organization skills. Is it difficult to say hard things to your boss? Look into assertiveness training.
Whatever it might be, finding what parts of your job that cause the anxiety is the first step in doing something about it and getting back into the flow of things.
3. Be proactive
As you get better at your job, your skills naturally improve. Prepare for that! If you’re facing the same challenges at Year 3 as you did on Day 1, you will likely find them a bore. So keep track of your skills and seek new challenges in your position (or in a new one) as your capabilities increase. And if you have a dream role you’re striving for, consider what skills you need to develop to keep it from becoming an anxious nightmare.
One final note. Jobs can be incredibly stressful for reasons beyond skills and challenges. Flow does little for hostile work environments. If you’re in such a situation, optimizing your enjoyment of work might mean doing something besides challenging yourself or growing your skillset. That’s the point where it's worthwhile to bring a professional in to help you understand what you need. A counselor, like one at Spring Tree, might prove helpful in such a tough situation.
1Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.