"What” Is The Right Question To Ask On Career Growth.

This is the second article in our three part series on making career changes. In our first article, we shared the importance of being progress focused in your decision making by focusing on “What” and “How” questions rather than asking “Why”.

We scratched the surface on defining ‘WHAT’ as areas you want to improve and refine your skill set. This article will expand further on this concept, so you are confident in which areas you invest your time and energy to develop.

An idea we love to use in our coaching is ensuring our clients our “Set For Success”. It is crucial that your new work environment is a situation where you are confident you have what you need to be successful. It’s a terrible situation when you start a job only to find out it’s not what you had signed up for. 

Unfortunately, in many of our consultations, we often hear individuals rarely have a clear definition of their needs, misorder their priorities, and completely neglect important aspects altogether. 

Even worse, most tend to focus on superficial considerations that don’t actually impact their day-to-day experience. It’s no wonder why so many people feel frustrated or burned out on the job. This article will share with you what it means to be set for success, the factors to consider to set yourself up for success, and how to get started on this.

What’s Play Got To Do With It?

While everyone has their own unique list of what they need to be set for success, there is one definition we want everyone to be unified on, and is the basis of all our work here at Plus10. To be Set For Success means putting ENJOYMENT into your work-productivity equation.

In the New York Times Bestseller book, Primed To Perform, Lindsey McGregor and Neel Doshi provide a framework on workplace motivation. They list six motives that impact motivation (Play, Potential, Purpose, Economic, Emotional, Inertia) with “Play” having the greatest impact. As the author states, “Play is when you are motivated by the work itself. You work because you enjoy it. A teacher at play enjoys the core activities of teaching — creating lesson plans, grading tests, or problem solving how to break through to each student. Play is our learning instinct, and it’s tied to curiosity, experimentation, and exploring challenging problems.”

(Here’s a link to a great HBR article that summarizes their insight)

To be Set For Success means putting ENJOYMENT into your work-productivity equation.

Perhaps you can now begin to understand our bewilderment why most people don’t seriously put enjoyment as a top priority when accepting a job offer. We think not doing so is equivalent to putting the cart before the horse. 

So, let’s ask the practical question to ensure you’re set for success: 

How Do I Define What I Enjoy?

At Plus10, we unpack this question by helping our clients understand the Three Parts Of The Mind. The model separates the mind into three distinct areas: Cognitive, Affective, and Conative. Let’s expand on each!

Your Cognitive (or Thinking) part of your Mind is based on learned behaviour.

These include your skills, knowledge, reason, habits, etc. Another way to think about it, it's your cognitive mind which determines whether you can or can’t.

Conative example: if you’re about to dock a boat, knowing the right knot to use and how to do it would be a cognitive function.

Finding play for your cognitive mind is when you are intellectually stimulated and enjoy the problem solving task at hand. For example: professional chess players or your Demand Marketing Specialist who loves to create, tinker, and refine the marketing funnel.

Your Affective (or Feeling) part of your Mind is based on experience and values.

These include your emotions, beliefs, attitudes, desires, etc. The affective mind determines what you want or don’t want.

Affective example: if you strongly favour and lean towards working from home full time. 

Finding play with your affective mind ties into the higher level alignment of what you're working on. For example: agreeing with the company culture, feeling you are purpose driven in your role, or having the potential career advancement you want.

Your Conative (or Doing) part of your Mind is based on your instinctual will.

These include your drive, mental energy, instinct, talents, etc. The conative mind determines whether you will or won’t.

Conative example: If you love to follow through on a heavily rigorous process, you'll go through each step in order and check off each item as you complete it. Or, if you're a detailed oriented person, you'll love to dive deep into research on an interesting topic.

Finding play with your conative mind is about having creative freedom and control in your actions. For example: following your instincts on how to solve a problem or task you're working on. There's a lot of discussion about "flow state" from productivity coaches. Understanding your conative part of your mind is what enables you to find it.

(Shameless plug: our career coaching and leadership development work is focused on helping people understand their conative traits to achieve higher enjoyment and productivity in independent and collaborative work. You can read more about it here)

Who you are is a combination of all three parts of the mind. More importantly, the process of turning motivation into action involves all three. It is incredibly valuable and rewarding when you are clear on what play looks like for each, so you can become crystal clear on what being set for success looks like for you.

Please take a pause and ask yourself this question:

How would you rate yourself for each part of your mind in your current work situation? Why?

So What?

The problem we see today in poor career direction and decision making is two fold. The obvious issue is that most people glaze over the importance of how the day-to-day activities on the job impacts their overall enjoyment and performance in the role; instead, prioritizing other factors such as pay or job title above Play. The deeper issue at hand is that nearly everyone is unaware of (and thus, neglect) how their conative needs impact their idea of Play.

In our last article, we argue the importance of self-reflection in making the right decision in your career advancement. The intent of this article is to give you a framework to approach how you think about what’s important in the decision making process. To be set for success in the workplace, you must include your enjoyment into the work-productivity equation. To define enjoyment, incorporate all three parts of the mind to get clear on what that looks like for you.

(Author’s comment: We’d be excited to chat more on these concepts we shared here; just message us! I wanted to streamline the explanation for this article to retain people’s attention. If there’s any questions you have, happy to discuss them with you!)

To be set for success in the workplace, you must include your enjoyment into the work-productivity equation.

If you’ve been struggling with finding motivation and meaning in the work you do, my hope is that this article kick starts the process for yourself. There is an abundance of opportunities out there. The perfect one is waiting for you! Plus10 helps individuals through this process. Our third and final article in this series will share how we help you achieve this for yourself.

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(If you’re interested in the evolution and development of the three parts of the mind in western philosophy and psychology, I highly recommend Conation: The Missing Link in the Strengths Perspective, by Karen Gerdes and Wisdom Of The Ages, by Kathy Kolbe)