On today’s episode of the Finding Career Zen podcast, Pete is joined by special guest, Dr. Benjamin Ritter. Dr. Ritter is a leadership, executive, and career coach for Live for Yourself Consulting, an organization he founded to empower and create accountability for the leaders of today and tomorrow. He explains LFY’s process in helping leaders craft a career that aligns with their values, and focuses on the importance of finding happiness within your career throughout the episode.
Ben’s motivation to guide others comes from his own personal career dissatisfaction and the lessons he had to learn along the way. He shares some excellent advice for those unhappy at work and offers resources for those ready to begin exploring their interests. He believes creating clarity around your interests and defining your fears are key to creating a fulfilling career.
Tune into this episode to hear more from Benjamin and check out his free e-book, “5 Secrets to Creating a Fulfilling Career.”
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn here!
How to achieve and find career satisfaction
- You are the most important person in your life. You make your own decisions and the most important leader in your life is yourself. Ultimately, you choose who to follow and what to believe.
- If you’re unhappy at work, you’re the one that made yourself unhappy. You need to take responsibility for your own career satisfaction and start creating clarity around what you’re interested in. Realize you’re uncomfortable enough and confident enough to create something new for yourself.
- If you believe you’re in a toxic work environment, challenge yourself on those beliefs. Ask other people about your experience to see if they have a different perception. And ask yourself if your reaction to your environment is serving your career path and ability to build relationships, or hindering it.
- Ask yourself what’s the worst thing that could happen. Most of the time, if you sit back and think about it, you would be fine. It might be stressful, frustrating, and take time, but you would make it work. People are handcuffed to things based on their fears, so define what you’re afraid of and let it play out.
- If you’re unsure what you want to do, the best way to learn is through experience. Exploration becomes more difficult as you get older, so take the time to discover your true interests.
- Combining work with your true interests is a wonderful thing. Knowing what you want is a gift. If you know what you’re passionate about, it would be a disservice to not explore it. You don’t need to quit your job or give up everything that you’ve worked for over the years, but go get a taste of it.
- Start reading books. Listen to podcasts and do research. There are so many resources out there for us now. You have to take accountability for where you’re at and decide to change it. Take ownership and take action, otherwise it’s just talk.
