Finding Satisfaction

Each one of us wants to live a life that will be deeply satisfying both professionally and personally. Unfortunately there are very many wrongheaded theories about what it takes to find satisfaction. Often these theories lead to frustration and dissatisfaction.

I was once like that – frustrated. I was very successful by the world’s standards in terms of career, income and life, but I was not satisfied. The frustration set me on a quest to find satisfaction.

I have learned three lessons so far in the quest, to find not just satisfaction with work, but deep satisfaction with life as well.

Lesson #1 – Discipline yourself to work hard and make sure you are challenged.

Extremely hard work is inherently good, virtuous and deeply satisfying. Laziness or idleness is not a path to contentment.

Many who have grown up on a farm or ranch know about hard work and the feeling at the end of the day when you are bone tired from exertion. But it is a good tired. A satisfied tired. That is what I am talking about.

Hard work can certainly be physical, but it also can be mental. Look for work that is at the very edge of your abilities, where you can continue to learn and grow. An easy path without challenge cannot satisfy the way a hard path with significant challenges can.

Lesson #2 – Pick a career that uses your God given skills

I believe we have all been given specific skills. We are stewards of these skills and I believe we will ultimately be held responsible for how we use them.

If you pick a career that fully leverages your unique skills, you will be more proficient and ultimately more satisfied. If you pick a career that does not use your unique skills, they will atrophy and you will not reach your full potential.

Lesson #3 is probably the most important – The inherent purpose of work is to serve others.

This is the most surprising lesson I learned.

My satisfaction is not about me at all. It is about serving others.

Some would say the purpose of work is to get a paycheck, but if you view work that way you will never be deeply satisfied; you will just be putting in your time. I believe it is impossible to sustain passion for a paycheck alone. You must find the higher purpose in your work.

That higher purpose or noble purpose, as I call it, is generally to serve others. EVERY job worth doing has a noble purpose.

For example, the job of the cleaning staff at our offices is not “to clean the offices.” That definition fails to recognize the role the cleaning staff has in serving others. Their “noble purpose” is to ensure a clean and productive work environment for our staff. Taken to an extreme, if the offices were never cleaned, every office would fill with trash. Consequently without the cleaning staff, ultimately no one else at the company would be able to do their job.

Every worthwhile job has a higher purpose in serving others. If you focus on that purpose daily, rather than the paycheck, contentment and satisfaction are much easier to obtain.

For example, our mission at RightNow is to “Rid the World of Bad Experiences.” Without our solutions our clients are less competitive and less able to serve their customers. Ultimately, we help our clients retain their customers and attract new ones. Few things could be more important to any organization than how they care for their customers. That’s our noble purpose.

In addition, as a company we provide challenging and worthwhile livelihoods for our staff. Our 750+ employees are buying homes, raising families, taking vacations, sending kids to college and generally living out their dreams. Understanding and focusing on these noble purposes makes my work very worthwhile and very satisfying.
So that is what I learned so far. Please let me know what you think.