Values driven work
Here’s a surefire recipe for burnout: A mismatch of one’s own personal values and the values of a workplace or industry. If work requires a person to engage in activities wherein their values are not being upheld, this leads to a sense of disconnection, stress, and possibly even moral injury.
Chances are your values do not align perfectly with your employer or your industry. Capitalism, the economic system under which we all work, incentivises the pursuit of profit over the well being of employees, society, and the environment. That alone can be a tough pill to swallow, at least for me.
While perfect alignment of values is likely not possible, gaining clarity regarding your own values and aiming your energy toward those values can be helpful in preventing or ameliorating burn out.
GET CLARITY
Even if you’ve reflected on your values in the past, give it a go again. Values change over time. Consider doing these exercises with a friend or small group. Notice how your values are the same (birds of a feather…as they say) or different. It may be easy to assume that everyone shares your values because they seem so self-evident. Noticing that differences exist between people can help us appreciate our own as unique (and *bonus* may allow compassion for others).
Complete this values card sort and identify your top 5 values. Narrowing them down can be difficult but doing so can help you identify and articulate your values.
Shoot a text to a few loved ones. Ask them to tell you what they think you value most. Their responses may surprise you!
Look around and see who you admire. Which qualities do you admire most in friends? Who are your heroes and why?
Consider how you spend your time. What gives you the most pleasure or sense of purpose?
TAKE ACTION
So what do we do if we discover a disconnection between our personal values and professional identity or workplace roles? Our personal values offer us a north star, something to aim for. Consider them while doing the following activities.
Write a professional mission statement. Your professional mission statement defines your core purpose and values, your reasons for doing the work you do, and what you hope to achieve by doing it. This mission statement DOES NOT have to match that of your employer. You don’t have to share it with anyone. This statement is solely for your own benefit to help guide your behavior in the day-to-day toward your own personal values and to help you feel motivated toward your own goals. Here's a basic template: "I [what you do] by [how you do it] for [target consumers, customers, or audience] to [purpose, goal or ultimate impact.]”
Practice job crafting. Have you heard of this shit? Job crafting is a brilliant idea that encourages employees to redesign their jobs to enhance job satisfaction, motivation, and engagement. Your employer, coworkers, clients, or business partners don’t even have to know about it. Sure, you have set roles and responsibilities but there may be some flexibility about how to accomplish those goals in ways that better align with your values.
Task crafting–Doing more or less of certain tasks, adapting tasks to highlight your strengths, or changing the sequence of tasks you have to complete. For example, you may take on more tasks that interest you, delegate tasks that are inconsistent with your values, or complete less valued tasks first thing in the morning so you can have the rest of the day to focus on what feels like it truly matters.
Relational crafting–Altering who you interact with and how. For example, you may decide to work more closely with some people and less closely with others. Perhaps you decide to foster more personal relationships with your colleagues. Or perhaps you decide NOT to, participating less in workplace drama or social activities.
Cognitive crafting–Altering how you think about the work you do. For example, focusing on your own professional mission statement as described in the previous activity. Or thinking of work as a means to an end, allowing you to focus on more important identities and activities outside of work that gives your life meaning and purpose. Changing the way we think of our job, fundamentally changes the way we approach it.
Write a new job description informed by your values. Look at your actual job description or just write down what you do everyday in a way that focuses on your values. For example, if you work at Domino’s and your five top values are friendship, fun, community, humour, and creativity, your job description may look like the following–
Job Title: Pizza slinger
Job Purpose: To feed the masses and have fun while doing it
Job Duties and Responsibilities: Be kind to customers and coworkers and make them laugh with jokes. Use my creativity to enhance efficiency so I have more time to goof off with work friends. Practice safe food handling to keep my community and the people I care about feeling well. Be a good team member to avoid putting strain on workplace friendships and build a sense of community. Make up funny little songs about the chores I hate to do, like mopping, to entertain myself and my coworkers.
Having a clear sense of what we value gives us purpose, direction, and clarity in discerning how we want to spend our time and effort. Sure, when it comes to work there are certain things we cannot change. But with a strong sense of what we value, we are able to focus on what matters and let go of the rest.