Sculpting Our Own Lives

              Although the concept has apparently been around since at least 1999, the concept of job sculpting only recently came across my desk.  The entire premise of job sculpting is that unless a job is matched to a person’s “deeply embedded life interests,” he or she will become dissatisfied or uncommitted.  Deeply embedded life interests do not determine what people are good at.  Instead, they drive what kinds of activities make them happy. The challenge, however, is that most people are simply unaware of their own deeply embedded life interests.  This happens for many reasons—some people take the path of least resistance (i.e. my dad was a lawyer); others are lured simply by the prospect of financial gain or prestige; still others follow the career advice of simply going into what they are good at and some are simply fulfilling others expectations of them.  However, choosing a profession based on these reasons alone will not translate into job satisfaction (although they may help the person tolerate their own dissatisfaction for long periods of time).  The article I read, which is available here, https://hbr.org/1999/09/job-sculpting-the-art-of-retaining-your-best-people/ gave a couple of poignant examples that resonated with me personally.  First, one manager in the high-tech industry went through three companies before realizing it wasn’t the company he needed to change but his work.  The article discusses that often times, an employee will attribute their unhappiness to their managers or organizations and so they will leave the company, only to find similar dissatisfaction because the root of their “career malaise” has not been identified. 

If I’m honest with myself, I’ve had my fair share of job dissatisfaction ever since becoming an attorney.  Whenever I have alluded to not being happy as an attorney, I usually get the same response, “But you are so good at it.”  I have never really been able to internalize how it is that I can be so dissatisfied with something I am good at.  We are trained, from an early age, that if you are good at something, you do it.  If you are good at basketball, you play it.  If you aren’t good at something, then let’s be honest, most of us don’t pursue it.  So it makes sense that I chose a profession I was good at without fully realizing I might not like it.  After reading the first half of the article, I stopped, looked up and had that “aha” moment where I finally understood how I could be dissatisfied with something I was good at.  Maybe it was obvious to everyone else, but it never truly made sense to me.  If I was good at something and had success at it, it seemed axiomatic that I should like it.  And yet, ten years later, I still did not and was unable to truly grasp the why behind that reality. 

I have wrestled with the thought of leaving the law for a great deal of time now.  When my back is against the wall or I am challenged, I can be a real asshole and that makes me a great attorney.  But I don’t like feeling that way, I don’t like the adrenaline rush that sends blood pumping into my temples, and I don’t like feeling that out of control anger that is a result of my fight or flight response in battle.  Big surprise (said sarcastically) it is always fight to the death in my case.  The other aspect of being an attorney is that I don’t like to pontificate over the meaning of a single word.  I make decisions quickly, easily, effortlessly and find discussions about whether we should use “a” or “the” to be a complete and utter waste of time because I recognize immediately there are arguments in favor of both and further discourse will not necessarily result in a clear winner.  I also don’t like that much of the law assumes the worst about people and you have to constantly be thinking in terms of “when this is litigated,” not even “if this is litigated.” 

This article, is pretty basic and after thinking it through, it all seems so obvious that I am a little ashamed to be writing this.  At the same time, if I didn’t put two and two together, it is possible others haven’t either.  At the end of the day, I feel better knowing that it’s not abnormal to not like something you are good at. Having the understanding of why and how this could have occurred is the first step to changing things, which gives me hope.   I think it is beautiful how sometimes life brings us these little surprises when we need them the most. 

In the bigger scheme of things, because I always have to take my analysis to the next level [#Aleschproblems] it was a good reminder for me as a parent.  As adults, we can inflict incredible damage upon our children when we force our own wants, interests and desires on them.  If the child spends his or her life fulfilling other people’s expectations of them, we are committing them to an adult life of potential dissatisfaction.  There are parents who tie money to their child going to a certain college or pursuing a certain career.  There are parents who pressure their children to take over the family business or continue the family legacy.  There are parents who simply have expectations of their children that they will excel and so the child naturally gravitates toward those activities in which he or she does excel, which leads them to choose a career based on what they are good at.  As a parent, my only goal for my children is that they find happiness, whatever that looks like for them.  I don’t want them to fulfill my expectations or meet my needs or simply choose a career path because it is expected or demanded.  I have always believed that my job as a parent is not to prepare the path for the child, but rather to prepare the child for the path.  I have written about this somewhat before but our culture has a tendency to tell us to choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity.  Resist the urge to place these shackles on yourself and your children.  This plague of sameness is killing not just our own ability to experience joy but also our children’s.  I can only hope my children are bold enough to use their voice, brave enough to listen to their heart and strong enough to live the life they have always imagined and re-imagined as opposed to the life someone else has dictated to them intentionally or unintentionally.  And for the rest of us, it is never too late to try.