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Looking for the perfect professional opportunity is no easy task. Building your career is a long partnership between your employer’s company and yourself. Alas, this leaves an important question to address: How far are you willing to go to find the perfect job?
You’ve decided to apply for an exciting job in a new company. You’ve read about the company’s culture and vision. Truth be told, they don’t match your personality. But you are willing to mold yourself to fit into the company. ‘I can be everything they want,’ you think. While there is no denying that you can pretend to be someone you’re not for the job, it’s unlikely you will find joy and fulfillment in the process. Here is why you should never force yourself to change for your career.
The perfect career is all about you
The right career path doesn’t just match your resume. It also matches who you are as a person. The right choice will make you proud of your achievements, which is where you can find joy and satisfaction. Yet, if you’ve chosen to work for a company whose values don’t align with yours, it can weigh you down. Nobody can be happy performing tasks they don’t believe in. Job satisfaction is as much a professional as an emotional match. While you can find a variety of jobs that will pay the bills, if you are willing to take your personality into account, you will build a career that fulfills you.
You grow as you gain experience
You are constantly changing and growing. However, you change on your own terms as you move through life and gain experience from important life lessons. As such, it is unfair to pretend that you don’t change throughout your career history. As you keep on learning with every encounter and project and discovering new ideas through books, you are bound to transform yourself. However, it is a gradual and natural process. As a result, your career needs to evolve to match your growth, not the other way round. Yet, personal growth isn’t something you can force. More importantly, it is a process that varies from a person to another.
You lose yourself in a job without joy
We all go through phases where we feel there is no other option but to change. Perhaps, you’re forcing yourself to change to fit in the team or meet your manager’s approval. In a world where we need to work to make a living, individuals need to consider personal fulfillment in their careers. A fulfilling job makes every day a breeze. But, on the other hand, a job that forced you to change turns every day into a nightmare. When you force yourself to act differently, you are ultimately forbidding yourself to be who you are. This adds a ton of pressure on you, crushing your sense of contentment, challenge, optimism, curiosity, and reward in the job.
Change is only healthy when it is part of a natural process that matches your personality and needs. You can’t force yourself to be someone you’re not to fit a company’s culture. This will not only hinder your job satisfaction but can also turn into a mental health burden. While it’s fair to say that you need to find the right balance between job satisfaction and wages – as you need both –, it can be dangerous to ignore contentment for the sake of monetary value.
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