How to Find A Job That Makes You Happy: The Ultimate Guide For Parents
Let’s play a game.
I’m going to give you 3 words and you think about the word that comes to mind first.
Parenting.
Job.
Work.
Okay now what’s the first word that comes to mind??
If I had to bet, I would guess the word Happy didn’t come to mind first. Maybe Tired, Stressed, Difficult were the more popular words.
For many parents, especially parents of younger children, the weekdays all look and feel the same.
Wake up.
Get kids ready for school.
Bring kids to school.
Go to work.
Come home from work.
Dinner time
Kids’ Bedtime
Fall asleep watching TV.
Rinse and Repeat
Sure, happiness may come in the little moments when you get to see your kids, but most of the day is spent at work, where only about half of working parents say they are “satisfied” according to a survey by Bowling Green State University.
But you didn’t come here for doom and gloom. You came here to find out how to find a job that makes you happy.
What Are Characteristics of a Job That Makes You Happy?
1. Meaningful and Purposeful Work: Not to sound like a fortune cookie here, but Happiness comes from Meaning and Purpose.
Okay maybe not all happiness, but it will certainly make you feel pretty happy to feel like you have a job with meaningful work and purpose and you’re not just pushing paper around.
2. Work-Life Balance: We hear this term almost too much now, but it has to be included in the conversation when talking about happiness at work.
Unfortunately, I was having trouble finding statistics from workplace happiness in the early 1900’s when people worked in factories, but I’ll go out on a limb and take a guess their source of happiness at work (if any) didn’t come from their work life balance.
A former boss of mine once told me how she ordered her life, and it was:
1. Faith
2. Family
3. Work
This was how she led our team, and my friends are an example of work life balance.
3. Supportive Work Environment: For the .003% of you reading this who will appreciate it, I will give a professional wrestling reference (and if you don’t want to read any further just skip to number 4 it will be okay).
Stone Cold Steve Austin had a boss, Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF at the time, who was always trying to keep him down and made his life hell on TV each week. This would be an example of a workplace that wasn’t very supportive.
It’s corny I know, but we’ve all been at jobs where the boss is constantly on us for no reason at all. It’s impossible to be happy when you go to work everyday dreading interacting with your boss.
4. Opportunities for Growth: I will say, this isn’t necessarily true for all jobs, Dentists, Garbage Men (apologies if that’s not the PC term) and Mail Carriers come to mind for jobs that don’t necessarily need growth opportunities to help with happiness because they are service type jobs.
However, in most jobs, having the ability to move up the ladder, or even just up the step, makes people feel like they have a goal to accomplish and makes them happy when they actually do have the opportunity to move up.
5. Recognition and Appreciation: It’s extremely important for people to feel appreciated, especially in their job. Places that make people feel good about their accomplishments are usually places where you can find happy workers.
What You Should Know About Happiness in A Job
Let’s take a second to be real here.
Even if you got to spend the rest of your life in Hawaii not working and doing whatever you wanted every day, you’d lose your happiness at one point (probably when it rains, or you see your grocery bill).
The only people I know singing as they work every single day are the 7 um…. Dwarfs…I think I’m allowed to say that because I’m talking about Snow White.
The bottom line is that while there’s no “dream job” our goal is to get you into a job that you’re overall happy with.
A Parent’s Guide To Finding a Fulfilling Job: The 9 Steps
1. Self-Reflection and Assessment:
a. This is one of the most difficult parts of the process. It’s also essential to find a job that makes you happy.
Do Not Skip This Step!! In the job search process, many people skip right over this step and go right to updating their resume and applying to jobs similar to ones they’ve had.
The problem with this is they aren’t even thinking about whether or not they even LIKED those jobs. So, take the time and do the reflective work, even if it won’t get you a job that day.
2. Identify your skills, strengths, and interests by evaluating your past experiences, hobbies, and activities you enjoy:
a. For those of you just itching to get a look at your resume after reading that first step, now is when you can take your resume out…. but DON’T start editing.
You’ve reflected on what you like, love, and what makes you happy right?
Now it’s time to figure out how to get there.
What are you good at?
What can you do that is valuable?
What do you like doing?
If you’ve had a long career, this may take some time. Go through your resume, look at what jobs you liked, hated, loved or didn’t care about and see what skills you’ve acquired over the years.
If you are fresh out of college or high school, the world is at our fingertips. Think about what classes you enjoyed most, what skills you’ve picked up from your part time jobs and take notes because you’ll need them throughout this exercise.
3. Consider what kind of work environment, company culture, and values align with your preferences:
a. To get the most out of this step, you may want to talk to people in different workplaces to really understand these important aspects of a job.
If you hate the idea of wearing a suit and going into an office 5 days a week, you may want to avoid Finance roles on Wall Street.
It may not sound important but where you work every day and how the people are happened to be pretty big things to factor into your job search.
You might think you’d be happy anywhere making $250k a year but trying to commute an hour and a half every day to a place that bores you to death and the people are lousy. I’ll guarantee you that $250k won’t make you happy as you get home at 9pm every night.
**Note***
HAPPINESS You may have to give up some aspects of culture, values or work environment the more desperate you are for a job, but the goal is not to stray too far off of your path.
4. Define what happiness means to you in a job context. Clarify your career objectives and the specific factors that contribute to your happiness:
a. This is when it’s time to figure out what will actually make you happy.
This is another extremely difficult step. How do happiness and a job actually go together?
Will you be happy if you have a great work-life balance and get to be there for your children when they need you even if the work is boring and meaningless?
For some parents, the answer to that question could be an easy yes. Push paper around all day but get to take your kids to school, be there for after-school events, and home in time to cook dinner every night. Oh, and lots of vacation time.
For other parents, they might want to focus more on meaningful work, career growth and making enough money to support their family.
Whatever you define HAPPINESS as, make sure it’s something realistic and shoot for it.
5. Research Potential Employers and Industries:
a. In the words of Daffy Duck from Space Jam, “It’s gut check time!”
This is the part where it gets real.
The previous 4 steps were all self-reflecty things to do, but Step 5 is where the big boys play. (Okay I’ve now made a Stone Cold Steve Austin, Daffy Duck and WCW reference all in the same blog…about finding a job that makes you happy…there should be some sort of prize for that.)
You’ll need to put in a lot of time for this step, because this is going to determine where you end up. If you can find people at different companies for this step as well, it would be great to reach out via LinkedIn or an email.
Glassdoor.com is great for reading employee reviews, but it’s always better to talk to real people.
6. Customize your resume, cover letter, and online profiles to highlight the skills and experiences that match the job you desire:
a. This is the part where you need to pay attention to the details.
Tailoring your resume, cover letter and job applications to specific jobs kind of sucks. It’s a tedious process that most of the time will result in you not getting the job. But the good news is it only takes 1 time for it to actually work, and you get an interview.
Pro tip: I’m sure your resume looks pretty when you put it in a PDF, but unless they specifically ask for it in an application, keep it a Word document. It’ll be easier to update, and it won’t cause issues on the backend with the applicant tracking systems.
7. Utilize job boards, professional networking platforms, and industry-specific resources to find openings in companies that align with your goals:
a. If you don’t do this step, you’ll be wasting a lot of time during Step 6.
You can spend weeks on Step 6 and send out 1000 applications and you may not hear from anyone. If you focus on Step 7 after you send your applications (or during) you’ll see results start happening faster.
If you’ve ever seen on LinkedIn, they tell you how many people applied for the job posting your looking at. I’ve seen jobs with 4,700 applicants. Have you ever read 4,700 resumes? Neither do the recruiters.
Network, Network, Network, Network
8. Prepare for interviews by showcasing how your skills and values align with the company's mission and culture:
a. Practice until you are confident.
If you hate job interviews…
PRACTICE
If you love job interviews….
PRACTICE
In the words of Eminem, “You only get one shot.”
Be prepared for the interview because it’s your one and only chance to show the company who you are and what you can bring.
We’ve all had great interviews, and we’ve all had terrible interviews. Learn from your mistakes and put your best foot forward.
9. Consult With Your Family:
a. Believe it or not, this can make or break happiness at your job.
If you’ve taken the time to go through Steps 1 through 8 and somehow didn’t consult your family, the happiness you feel at your job may wither away if you don’t have their support.
Tom Brady and his wife got divorced right before his final season in 2022. She wanted him to retire, and he wanted to play. He played, but he didn’t play too well and didn’t look so happy during the season. He wound up getting embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs.
Not to pick on Tommy (the greatest QB ever) but he learned a hard lesson. If your family doesn’t support your job, even if it’s something that will make you happy as an individual, the stress from balancing your job and your family will bring that happiness to a screeching halt.
Final Thoughts:
As a working parent, it’s your job to provide for your family, but it’s also important to find a job that you enjoy, so you’re less stressed, have more energy, and can give more time to raising your children.
At Your Career Strategy, we’re here to help you find that job. Give us a call and set up an absolutely FREE coaching call a start on your path to finding happiness.