End-of-the-Year Fulfillment Audit: Find the Joy in Your Work
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Marney Andes of marneyandes.com, I’m the bestselling author of Start with the Give-Me Shots, and this is my blog. I want you to know that the topics I write about here are things I’m living and breathing. I combine my own insights and reflections with stories from my real life and exercises you can use if the words resonate with you.
But first—before you start reading—it’s important to know that the topic on my heart today is about work, and it’s geared towards the working individual.
Here’s what’s on my mind today: Conducting your own end-of-the-year fulfillment audit.
As we near the end of the year, I want to invite you to reflect on the things you really want to do as you move into the new year.
You can think about it like an end-of-the-year personal fulfillment audit.
Throughout the year, I changed companies and took on a new role. Part of the excitement of taking my new role was the larger scope. But part of my role was to bring order. And bringing order uncovered a number of items to review, address, influence, and more…which quickly lead to burnout. In a short period of time, I found myself lacking joy in my own work. Everything seemed to be painful. I liked the people I was working with, I liked the industry I’m in, but the work itself was starting to wear me out.
After far too many days of being in the dumps, something occurred to me. I realized—I needed to stop thinking about what wasn’t happening or the seemingly bad stuff that was happening and start finding the joy in my work again. A fitting example of why I share with others frequently is that the lessons in my book, the lessons of life, aren’t lessons to master. Lessons are a guide to our continual learning journey. I know the value of finding joy in my work. And yet, here I was needing to remind myself of my own lessons.
You’ve gotta find the good stuff, recall it, and lean into it.
So that’s what I did, I finally sat down and asked myself: what’s good about this?
I went through the process of reflecting on the things I like to do and the things I’ve done for so many years but have outgrown. The truth is—you might get to a point in your career where you look at the work you’re doing and say, “Even though I know I can do this, maybe it’s time for a change.”
To find joy in your own work, ask yourself these questions:
What's really inspiring to you?
What still brings you joy?
What still inspires you personally?
What work activities give you an uptick in energy as you’re doing them?
If these questions are sparking examples of joy in work, then dig in and start bringing more of these activities to the surface. But if these questions are met with little to no examples, it might be time to reassess your role and start thinking about those activities outside of work that bring you joy and how you can begin the journey of finding a new role that will align more with your expectations.
Now, going through this exercise and realizing you don’t have an excessive amount of examples doesn’t mean you should throw away your medical degree or small business and try to figure out how to start brand new. On the contrary, this exercise is an invitation to look at your role or broader career and the work you love doing from a bird's eye view so you can identify what brings you joy. And in doing so, carry those joyous activities forward.
Here’s the exercise:
Identify the types of work you do in your role. If you don’t know how to identify it, get really granular and think: how do I spend each hour of my day? What is the actual work I am doing? Write down a list of what you do.
Once you have that list, ask yourself these questions:
What's really inspiring to you?
What still brings you joy?
What still inspires you personally?
What gives you an uptick of energy as you’re doing it?
The work that is still inspiring you, bringing you joy, and giving you energy is what you’ll bring into the new year. The work that is no longer serving you needs to be addressed. Who do you need to have an honest conversation about this with?
And P.S. — You need to start with yourself. Once you have an honest conversation with yourself about not enjoying some of the work you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, ask yourself if it’s work you can delegate to someone who would love to do it. If you can delegate it, great! But once you’re able to identify work that is causing you pain and it can’t be delegated, that’s when you need to have an honest conversation with someone else. Is it time to talk to your partner, leader, or team about this? Who can you share your experience with? Don’t suffer alone. Even if you’re not able to take the work off your plate, telling other people will prompt problem-solving brainstorming sessions you may not have been able to do by yourself. Please don’t underestimate the value of asking for help and/or ideas.
For more advice on succeeding in life, both personally and professionally, you can find Start with the Give-Me Shots on Amazon.
Marney Andes is a born-and-bred farm girl from Wallace, Nebraska. A consultant, educator, and entrepreneur, she has dedicated her career to supporting teams and individuals as they develop and grow. Her experience in performance consulting and leadership development spans a wide range of industries, including technology, healthcare, education, and nonprofit. A college basketball player and former Mrs. America, Marney is the founder of Project Aspire, a nonprofit created to support women in their pursuit of higher education and leadership opportunities. Marney holds a master’s in information and learning technologies from the University of Colorado Denver and currently resides outside of Denver with her husband, Allen, and her two sons, Owen and Brody.