Business Beyond the Numbers: How to Find Fulfillment at Work With Shay Rowbottom

You’ve definitely heard someone you know complain about their job.

They can’t get themselves out of the 9-to-5 rut or maybe they simply hate their boss.

Whatever the case there is a common thread that binds unhappy employees:

A lack of purpose.

When you truly love what you do, you’re likely to want to go the extra mile. If you work for fulfillment, you’re also likely to be more productive, happy, and engaged at work.

Yet many of us end up with dead-end jobs that leave us wanting more.

Is there a way out?

In this podcast, Shay Rowbottom, CEO of Shay Rowbottom Marketing, discusses how it’s possible for each one of us to find our higher purpose so that we can reach our true potential.

How Can You Find Your Purpose And Reach Your True Potential?

If you are unhappy or unfulfilled with your job, you’re on the right path.

How does that make any sense?

Because at least you know you are capable of achieving more. You know you want greener pastures in your life.

Listen to your inner dissatisfaction.

It might be time to make a drastic change. If you want to reach your full potential, you need to begin by finding your true purpose.

How can you find your true purpose?

Start by asking yourself these questions:

• Why do you do the work that you do?
• What motivates you?
• If you could do any job in the world, what would you pick?
• Are you happy?

Finding the right answers may not be an easy task.

To help you out, Shay Rowbottom has some tips for you:

1. Unlearn Your Childhood Conditioning

Since your childhood, society has conditioned you to behave in a certain way.  You’re expected to make certain choices to fit into the culture.

While growing up, you likely observed your parents, teachers, and other older people around you and learned about certain behaviors from them.

If you want to reach your true potential, you need to work on finding out who you are minus the conditioning. Forget all of the societal expectations and pressures.

Who are you without any of that weighing you down?

To become more self-aware, you need to observe yourself more objectively. Just think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

Put all your judgments aside. Observing your own behaviors can help you identify toxic patterns that have stuck around from childhood.

In the podcast, Shay reveals that it took a lot of introspection for her to realize that she had a “victim mentality.”

Instead of owning up to her mistakes, she always felt like she was a victim of the circumstances around her.

Not only did it affect her personal life, but it impacted her professionally as well. She realized that she was always trying to run away from responsibility. Or trying to blame setbacks on someone else.

Once she became aware of her negative patterns, she tried to figure out why she was acting the way she was. That’s when she understood which part of her personality she needed to work on.

2. Get Honest Feedback From Close Friends

It can be difficult to see your own shortcomings clearly. After all, we all have our blind spots. The best way to understand your flaws is to ask people around you. Talk with your closest friends, the ones who can be brutally honest with you.

Tell them you don’t want to hear a sugar-coated version of your personality.

Be ready for the hard stuff and be strong enough to take it all without becoming defensive. The only way to improve is to own up your flaws and work on correcting them.

If you hear similar patterns or themes in your feedback from different people, know that it is an area you need to improve on.

To understand her limitations, Shay went to her girlfriends who would tell it like it was. She realized that others could clearly recognize the “victim mentality” mindset that she was operating from.

3. Find a Reliable Life Coach

To become your best version, you’ll need help from others. Of course, you can do it alone. But having someone rooting for you can make a world of difference.

That’s where a life coach can step in.

A life coach can help you navigate your personal and professional goals by working to develop an actionable plan for you.

Think of a life coach as a mentor, counselor, and friend — all rolled into one. They can help you identify the beliefs that are limiting you by analyzing your circumstances.

How?

Life coaches can help you devise a customized action plan keeping in mind your personality and specific goals that you want to achieve.

You can benefit from their experience, insight, and clarity of vision. Working with a life coach can help you stay more focussed and accountable.

For self discovery and growth, Shay is currently working with four life coaches who are helping her navigate different areas of her life.

4. Give Up People Pleasing

Everyone likes to be loved, right? But it’s impossible for everyone to like you. Shay believes if you’re popular with everyone, you are doing it all wrong.

Why?

There is a chance that you may be doing things that you don’t like, just to impress others.

That’s a facade you’re putting up.

Without you knowing, your people-pleasing tendencies can take over your life.

For example:

After putting in 10 hours of work, are you taking on another project just to impress your boss?

If you’re saying yes to every event and every assignment that comes your way, you’re not putting yourself first.

It can be exhausting to meet everyone’s demands. To avoid burnout, you need to become more assertive and set clear boundaries. Don’t do anything just because it is an obligation.

Conclusion

You’re the only person responsible for your happiness, fulfillment, and growth. If you want to reach your true potential, you need to give up on people pleasing and unlearn other behaviors that are holding you back.

Reach out to close friends and ask them for their honest feedback. That can help you understand your own blind spots.

Then, work with a reliable life coach to chart out an action plan for self-discovery and growth.

Do you have any questions about finding fulfillment in your career? Please share your views in the comments section.