Career Refresh Digest #46
Welcome to the latest edition of the Career Refresh Digest.
It never ceases to amaze me the powerful benefits people get from identifying or clarifying their values, and understanding how to apply them to their work lives. I share some of these benefits in today’s newsletter.
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WORTH THINKING ABOUT
The benefit of applying your values at work
The rate of job burnout in New Zealand hit a record high a couple of years ago, with one in two workers reporting severe burnout in Massey University Professor Jarrod Haar’s research. Those rates surpassed even pandemic-era levels.
Two of the common causes of burnout include excessive workload and a conflict of values.
It stands to reason then, that it is helpful to know what your values are so you can more readily identify if they are, or are likely to be, out of alignment in a particular workplace.
That said, even if you are not aware of what your values are, you will still have them, and you will still feel it if they are out of alignment – you just might not be able to put your finger on why it is that you are feeling the way you are. A values misalignment might not be obvious as the cause of your discomfort.
Better that you are tuned in to what your values are so that you can quickly recognize if they go out of alignment and you can take action on that before it leads to burnout.
While that benefit might be more obvious, the relationship to workload might not be.
Here’s how knowing your values can help manage workload.
What I’ve found is that when people are fully tuned in to their core values, they find they can use them as a powerful source of courage, and that they are better able to advocate for themselves.
Where they might previously have found it difficult to push back on work demands, once they align what they are trying to do with their core values, they find it easier.
For example, if they value family, framing the need for reasonable work hours around their value of being present at home, makes it feel easier to ask for.
Or if they value their health, identifying as someone who values their mental health and wellbeing can make it easier to advocate for themselves.
Once the ask is tied to something that genuinely matters to you, it stops feeling like a favour and starts feeling like a fair request.
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WORTH REFLECTING ON
Clarity of your own needs vs what others think you should want
Another way to build confidence to advocate for yourself at work is to use your values to help clarify what you need and want from work. The more clear you are, the less likely you are to get swayed by other people’s ideas of what you should want.
Most people carry around a fair amount of advice about what a good career looks like, gathered from parents, colleagues, or whoever's opinion has stuck. Often those views are unconsciously influencing choices and decisions – without people ever unpacking whether they actually fit with what they believe.
When you know your own values, that advice gets easier to sort. You can hold it up against what actually matters to you and decide, quickly, whether it applies..
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WORTH DOING
What do your values tell you?
Try this. Identify three of your core values.
For each value, write three things that value tells you that your workplace must have in order for it to feel aligned.
For example, if one of your values is fairness, think about what tells you about an organisation’s culture and the way people are treated, and the policies and processes need to demonstrate in relation to that value.
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If you need help with any of this, find out more about my Values Clarity Session here.
That’s it from me this fortnight.
– Lucy
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ABOUT THE CAREER REFRESH DIGEST
The Career Refresh Digest is a fortnightly newsletter for mid-career professionals who feel stuck or out of step with their work. Each issue shares practical insights and tools to help you reset direction, make clearer decisions, and reshape your work to better fit your life – drawing on recommendations, research, and insights from client work.