2 Psychology-Backed Hacks for Transforming Your Career
The mind is a powerful tool that holds great potential to transform our realities. All of us would like to experience job satisfaction in our careers, and to be able to effectively solve problems. Be it at work, at home, or at school, we can all benefit from learning how to use our minds to think differently about our problems and to alter our situations. This way we can live a balanced and more fulfilled life. Here are 2 great tips that will help you transform your thinking and change your reality:
1. Use creativity for problem-solving
It is usually tough to creatively solve your problems. This is because the problem affects you directly and is therefore very present in your immediate life. To combat this, you need to establish psychological distance, so that you are able to think creatively to find a solution. This is why it is often easier to help other people solve their problems than it is to solve your own.
A study conducted at Indiana University revealed that creating psychological distance between you and a problem boosts creativity, allowing for better insight and clearer thinking for finding solutions.
You can create psychological distance by changing your perspective of the problem. The further away a problem seems, the easier it is to solve. By treating the problem as if it were not concerning you, and looking at it from someone else’s perspective, you can create the distance needed to solve it creatively. You can use this method in your personal life, at work, and for studying.
2. Use job crafting
Quitting your job to look for the perfect job that will see you doing all the things you are good at and enjoy doing may not always be possible or necessary. By using job crafting, you can redesign your current job and shift the focus of your duties to match your skills and preferences. This can be accomplished by scheduling the type of tasks you enjoy doing when you are feeling energised and there is little chance of you being interrupted.
Job crafting is a powerful tool to use because it allows you to have more control over your professional life. It also offers you the advantage of impressing your employer. So how do you go about using job crafting? Here are the four steps to follow:
Define the changes you want to make
Think carefully about your current job and write down the things you would like to change about your work, how you do your work, and what work you do. Decide on the aspects you would like to focus on and what you would like to be working on more.
Improve the way you work by using the skills and knowledge you have to alter work methods for better results, and in that process ensure that you start building meaningful relationships with people in your work environment.
Believe in your ability
Before you can implement the previous step, you need to ensure that you avoid what psychologists term “learned helplessness”. This is described as the phenomenon where people are used to being in a state of being indifferent to their contribution. This means they believe that nothing will come of what they do.
By adjusting your job, you have the opportunity to turn this around. You can now decide what will make you feel more valued, what will allow you to be more productive, and then go through with the changes. Just keep in mind that it is crucial that your changes have a positive impact and outcome, not only for you but for the company as a whole.
Evaluate the impact of the changes
Start by assessing the changes and looking at how they will impact all the other factors that are part of your work. Effective job crafting requires a win-win solution for you, your clients, your co-workers and the company as a whole.
Ensure that the changes you make in how you work have a positive effect on the company and that they encourage interaction with other people in your company, while also giving you more job satisfaction.
- Track your progress
Once you have implemented your job crafting changes, it is important that you keep track of your progress so that you can apply changes where needed. Ask yourself the following questions and be sure to answer them as honestly as possible:
- Do the changes give you more job satisfaction?
- Are your co-workers, your employer, and clients benefitting from the changes?
- Are the changes improving the quality of your work and the work environment?
If you answer yes to the above 3 questions, you are on the right track. Your employer will be impressed with how you have taken initiative to not only get more out of your job, but also with how this has a positive impact for the whole company. You can then continue with this and make it a habit!
Being able to effectively solve problems and alter your reality with job crafting are key in transforming your career. Boost your creativity by creating psychological distance between you and a problem so that you can think clearer and gain better insight for finding solutions. This feeds perfectly into job crafting. Remember the important aspects of job crafting are being clear about the changes you want to make, believing in your own ability, evaluating your changes, and tracking your progress. Once this has become a habit, you will see the positive results, not just for you and your career, but for the company you work for, your co-workers, and clients.
For more on enhancing your career, read: 10 things you can do to enhance your career in 10 minutes a day!
