Discover the 7 Stages to Finding Career Fulfillment

I was struggling with career fulfillment. I loved to work. I have been working since I was eleven. Some of the work wasn’t all that interesting, but the paycheck at the end of a well-done job was very satisfying.

After selling our business, I had a new goal. I wanted to run more significant and more prominent tech companies. I thought I was the bee’s knees of general management—God’s gift to this profession. I found out as I progressed that I had a lot to learn. I got schooled.

My biggest lesson was this. I didn’t want to do what I thought I wanted to do. This led to a five-year search for career fulfillment.

Looking back, I realize I went through seven stages to get a new and fulfilling career. I share them with you and a bit of my story here. Hopefully, it connects to your story.

Stage 1: Admit you are unfulfilled. Hear yourself say, “This sucks!”

Stage 2: Remember what you value.

Stage 3: List your criteria for fulfilling work.

Stage 4: Seek fulfillment right where you are. Whatever needs to change, change it.

If the necessary changes can’t happen...

Stage 5: Say “no” to where you are and “yes” to where you’re going.

Stage 6: Begin your journey to find fulfilling work.

Stage 7: Continue to seek fulfillment. If it continues to elude you, then maybe it’s you and not the work. If so, get a therapist.

Stage 1: Admit you are unfulfilled. Hear yourself say, “This sucks!”

At the height of my professional management career, I became unfulfilled. Everything seemed right with my work, yet the work wasn’t suitable for me. This was my plight.

When I would talk to people about my situation, they would either tell me, “You’re nuts.” or “Find another job that suits you better.” This advice wasn’t helpful.

I realized I was unfulfilled, and it wasn’t the work’s fault. There was something in me that was causing this unrest.

The result; I was in the best job of my life. I was unfulfilled. I said, “This sucks!” I felt like the dog that caught the car.

Stage 2: Remember what you value.

I had to admit what mattered to me what I valued in life. I needed to align what I valued and my work. I need to walk my talk.

My job required me to travel week in and week out. I took the job initially because I was excited about the money, the professional growth, and the prestige of my title and responsibilities. I valued all these things.

But I came to realize I valued something far more. I valued my marriage and my children. In short, family trumped career. It was time for me to prioritize my values and act on these priorities. I never did this before. I always let my work come first.

This conflict in values was the source of my being unfulfilled.

Stage 3: List the criteria for fulfilling work.

Here is my list of what made work fulfilling for me.

I must earn enough to support my family and save for the future.

I must do something important to me and others.

I must have value alignment with my employer and my boss. What I value, my company and boss value too. This includes family as a priority over work.

I must learn new skills to succeed, but mastery remains elusive.

I must know I can fail or succeed and have the autonomy to do it.

Stage 4: Seek fulfillment right where you are. Whatever needs to change, change it.

I bought a plaque titled “Bloom Where You Are Planted.” I hung it on the wall right across from my desk. I looked at it every day. It didn’t work. Just telling myself I should be happy with my work didn’t make it accurate. I was unfulfilled even though everyone around me thought I should be fulfilled.

As I went through my checklist, I realized what was wrong with this work for me.

My work’s requirements caused me to be conflicted. I was sacrificing my marriage and relationship with my children to satisfy what I valued professionally. My family value had to come first. I could not be true to my higher priority of family and stay in this job. I had to choose what mattered most to me, job or family. The family won out.

Stage 5: Say “no” to where you are and “yes” to where you’re going.

Here is how I rated my current job against my fulfillment checklist:

• Money - check

• Essential work to me and others - nope

• Aligned values between my boss and me - nope

• Learning new skills - nope

• Fail/Succeed - check

Two out of the five are not good. And missing “Aligned values” was the killer. All my job fulfillment criteria needed to be checked. I was doing the wrong work to satisfy the priority of my values, that is, what mattered most to me at that stage of my life.

Over breakfast, my boss sensed my unhappiness. He said, “If you are not enjoying your work, you should leave. We’ll be fine.” I owned up to what I was thinking. When the breakfast ended, so did my employment. Now what?

Stage 6: Begin your journey to find fulfilling work.

This was a hard time in my life. I call it my desert walk. I jumped the track. I was derailed.

I used to wake up when I had a job knowing exactly what I was to do every day. Now I woke up to a blank slate, a whiteboard with nothing on it. I still had my family to support but didn’t have a paid job. Providing for my family became my priority, but so did my family. I was off the road, and I was there, with them, every day. This was good.

Leaving my work broke my routine. This break-in routine allowed me to see myself for the first time. Absent my busyness, I was exposed to the man I had become. I realized I had a drinking problem. I was an alcoholic. Functional for sure, but still an alcoholic. And this was impacting my relationship with my wife and my children.

In short order, after seeing this ugly truth, I found myself in Alcoholics Anonymous. After attending one hundred eighty meetings in one hundred eighty days, I lost my desire to drink daily. My higher power, the God of my understanding, took this desire from me. It was a miracle.

So I asked, “Who is this God of my understanding?”

I attended AA meetings almost every day but also pursued the answer to this question. I had to know. People in the tech community sensed this change in me. They invited me to events where businessmen and women shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I came to believe, the God of my understanding was Jesus Christ. I became a believer and a follower.

This sounds like I put my life on hold to address my alcoholism and search for God. Not true. I was networking daily in my community to find work that would pay me enough to support my family. I found a job as a COO of a software company. After nine months, I realized it didn’t check all the job fulfillment boxes. Then I got close to another COO position, but it fell through.

Amid these swings and misses, my new career emerged. A former branch manager asked me to fund her new company. I did it. I loved it. I became an angel investor specializing in Professional Services companies. This was the start of a thirty-year career. I was no longer a general manager. I was an angel investor.

Stage 7: Continue to seek fulfillment. If it continues to elude you, then maybe it’s you and not the work. If so, get a therapist.

I was fulfilled. I loved what I was doing. My values were in the correct order. God, family, work, and community. It was working.

But I still had some broken pieces to deal with. Thirty years into this new career; I found a therapist.

And now, at seventy, I am back in the desert—time to reevaluate my values, priorities, and work.

I wonder what God has for me next. I bet it is fulfilling. Even more fulfilling than my angel investing career. I live these days trusting in Jesus, who loves me and died for me. He leads me into the desert. He will lead me out.