The Alchemy Of Transforming Bad Jobs To Good

By Jeff Garton 

Interested in helping your coaching clients to transform a bad job situation into a better one? Based on a new book published by ASTD, titled Career Contentment: Don’t Settle for Anything Less, this article discusses the transforming power of career contentment when dealing with dissatisfying job conditions.

The term alchemy originates from medieval times and refers to the efforts by chemists to transform metal into gold. The process didn’t work, but the idea of magically transforming something bad into something good still intrigues us, and has become the foundation for billion dollar products and services, including: Plastic surgery, hair coloring, cosmetics, anti-aging, liposuction, anti-depressants and so forth.

Anything a person is willing to pay for can be transformed into something better. But buyers beware! The effects last only a short time before you begin thinking you need something new, better or different. Continuous improvement is in our genes, and so is complaining if we don’t get what we want or when things don’t always go our way. True alchemy or genuine transformations applied to people must come from within, not from the outside.

Job satisfaction is a proposition made by employers from the outside-in. It’s dependent on what employers provide and conditional on whether your expectations were fulfilled. You can’t simply choose to be satisfied, and because you lack control over your employer, job, boss, pay, benefits, and other things that make you satisfied, the probability exists that you may never be completely satisfied. But there still exists the possibility of a positive transformation even when faced with dissatisfying situations.

While you don’t have total control over the people and circumstances that affect your life and job satisfaction, you still have control over how you choose to experience these things from the inside-out by your reasoning and contentment. The pathway to positive transformations begins from within, provided you choose to avoid complaining and look for ways to benefit from your unfortunate situations. Like the flower that sprouts through dirt, you learn and grow from your pain and adversity.

These are trying economic times, and to illustrate how the alchemy of contentment works, consider the many people who have been suddenly laid off and can’t find work similar to what they had. Or imagine being forced to take a lower paying job outside of your normal career path just to feed your family. I coached such a person. I’ll call him John and this is his story of transformation.

John is an information technology expert who managed a team of twenty five people prior to his being downsized from a company that he worked with for eleven years. When John and I met his unsuccessful job search was approaching ten months, and for the last two months he had been working behind the hardware counter at Sears, often waiting on his former employees. He contacted me for coaching that would lead him back to his true calling and life purpose within his original career field. Had it not been for his interim job with Sears he couldn’t have paid his bills or fed his family.

John was eager to escape what he believed was a humbling situation at Sears that included lower pay, a controlling boss, and work that was beneath his interests and abilities. His job search produced several interesting interviews but he could not convert them into employment offers, and the longer he worked away from his career field he feared his credibility would suffer.

After meeting with John for the first time it was apparent that his problem in locating his next ideal job was not his interim job, low pay, controlling boss or resume, but rather his misery and desperation. Try as he might to mask his complaints and resulting lack of optimism, the desperation and residual anger was in his eyes and skilled interviewers were able to spot it. John was having difficulties landing another manager job because interviewer’s perceived him as a potential liability. John lacked a basic sense of career contentment.

Soon after John started his coaching he began to realize that taking just a job out of necessity to pay his bills and feed his family was a noble purpose. And although he was not working within his preferred career path, there was virtue or goodness in working with a clear conscience that he was doing his best to fulfill his purpose. By shifting his focus in this new direction John found meaning in his purpose, and gratitude despite circumstances, which inspired him to take pride in his efforts.

This simple change in thinking to produce positive emotions enabled John’s contentment or resilience to endure rather than allowing his unhealthy emotions to jeopardize his demeanor, health and interim job by complaining. At the same time, the problems with his boss seemed to disappear, and John couldn’t remember how or when this happened. Only when John decided to change did his situation magically transform around him. Even though John lacked job satisfaction, he was advantaged by the alchemy of his career contentment.

Within four months after his coaching began, John was offered an excellent job that put him back on his original career track, and for a moment he questioned whether he should leave Sears. He felt transformed, rejuvenated, revitalized, challenged and proud of his accomplishments. Sears was sorry to see him go and his new employer was delighted to get him. They respected his attitude, humility, ethics and integrity, and it didn’t matter what he had been doing over the last year, but that he had put his heart into doing his very best, and it showed.

Career contentment is not about the corner office, perks or bonuses. It’s about the journey and loving what is as you work towards a better future, and in the process growing from the experiences that life brings your way.

If you expect your job to be perfect or if you choose to remain dependent on things you don’t have or people and events you can’t control to make you satisfied, it’s guaranteed that you will be dissatisfied, frustrated, angry, disillusioned and worried. You could complain or quit, or you could reason to recognize your contentment with what you have and leverage it to persist and endure until you can turn your situation around. If you can’t recognize your contentment, your discontent signals that you may be in the wrong situation and should leave rather than waste your time and talents complaining. It’s your sense of contentment, or lack of it, that helps to guide your transformations.

Unfortunately, you don’t have John’s real name or you could ask him yourself about the alchemy of career contentment. He’s happily working for a major firm as their director of Information Technology. But if you happen to be visiting the Chicago area, stop by a Sears store and you might find him behind the auto parts counter where he still works on weekends.

The alchemy of career contentment occurs from within and is the source of your personal empowerment. It involves transforming your circumstances from bad to better by learning how to love what is. This ability not only inspires hope, but also your enduring resilience, self-motivation and natural engagement. Without it, you’re dependent on the world to make you satisfied.

Copyright 2008 by Jeff Garton All Rights Reserved

Jeff Garton, is author of, Career Contentment: Don’t Settle For Anything Less (ASTD Press, 2008). His company produces innovative learning materials and delivers Coach and Train-The-Trainer certificate programs to employers on the topic of career contentment.