Career Contentment: Don't Settle for Anything Less!

Jeff Garton

Description

Career satisfaction directly affects personal fulfillment and mental and physical well-being. Now anyone can learn how to get the most from his or her career. The secret is deceptively simplea meaningful, fulfilling career is available to anyone who makes the active decision to pursue it. Career Contentment details the various organizational factors affecting job satisfaction and shows you how to take control of your own happiness. 

Sujets

• Efficacité professionnelle
• Business
• Economics
• Training
• Employabilité, métiers et formations

Informations

• Publié par: Association for Talent Development
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781607282426
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

CAREER CONTENTMENT

Don’t Settle for Anything Less!

JEFFREY GARTON

CAREER CONTENTMENT

Don’t Settle for Anything Less

Jeffrey Garton

Alexandria, VA

© 2008 the American Society for Training & Development and Jeffrey Garton All rights reserved. Printing in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please go to www.copyright.com, or write Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (telephone: [phone], fax: [phone]). ASTD Pressis an internationally renowned source of insightful and practical information on workplace learning and performance topics, including training basics, evaluation and return-on-investment, instructional systems development, e-learning, leadership, and career development. Ordering information for print edition:Books published by ASTD Press can be purchased by visiting ASTD’s website at store.astd.org or by calling 800.628.2783 or 703.683.8100. Library of Congress Control Number (print edition only): 2007906898 Print edition ISBN: 978-1-56286-506-1 PDF e-book edition ISBN: 978-1-60728-242-6 2009-1

To Joe and Jeanne Garton

My father taught me: “You come into this world alone, and no one gets in y our casket with you when you leave. What you do in between is all up to you.”

My mother taught me: “You’ll know what to do.”

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Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments............................................................ vii Introduction: Why CareerContentment? .............................................. 1

Part I: Attracting Meaningful Work................................................ 11 1 Nine Principles for Creating an Employment Mindset ................ 15 2 Meet Potential Employers’ Expectations: The Five Steps to Success............................................................. 43 3 Present the Authentic “You” to Potential Employers— and Avoid Job Inflation ............................................................... 69 4 Make Confident Career Choices: Follow the Four Ps .................. 83 5 Keep Your Career on Track: Use Your Paradoxical Qualities and Seven Keys to Resiliency .... 103

Part II: Choosing to Be Contented with Your Life and Career.... 121 6 Learn to Master and Change Your Beliefs and Thoughts ........... 125 7 Forget Job Satisfaction and Look for Contentment .................... 151 8 Manage Your Career Contentment with the Career Flow Model .................................................................... 181 9 Maximize Your Career Contentment by Controlling Your Career Flow ....................................................................... 211 10 Becoming Comfortable with Career Contentment .................... 235 Epilogue: Toward a New Paradigm of Career Contentment ............. 253 Appendixes A. Career Contentment—Self-Assessment ................................. 269 B. Self-Assessing Your Decisions to Leave .................................. 273 References and Further Reading ....................................................... 276 About the Author ............................................................................. 281 Index ................................................................................................ 282

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Preface and Acknowledgments

he idea for this book began to form during the middle 1980s, and T the concepts given here have since been perfected based on my work with employees and career coaching clients, and in conversations with leading experts like Christopher Peterson, cofounder of the new positive psychology, who after our delightful conversations acknowl- edged that we have not only overlooked career contentment but have mistakenly confused it with job satisfaction. This book helps to explain the difference.

As with everything, there’s a story behind the story, which begins in 1975 and explains why I’ve devoted the majority of my career to devel- oping the idea of career contentment. My parents never went to col- lege, and I was the first of their seven childr en to complete my degree and then suffer the embarrassment of being unable to find a job. This was the most depressing period of my life, and to this day, if I see a soap opera on TV, I become physically ill due to the bad memories this experience evokes.

While facing unemployment and contemplating my growing stack of rejection letters, it occurred to me that I should get a job as “rejector” instead of just remaining a “rejectee.” I knew nothing about what was then called personnel, so I made a pact with God: “Help me to become a rejector, and I will devote my career to finding a solution that will help others o vercome the dissatisfactions associated with looking for work so they can have and enjo y the career they desire.”

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Preface and Acknowledgments

Something fateful happened the moment I spoke those words. It felt as if I truly meant them, and the next things I did were to sell everything I owned and enroll in a graduate program at the University of New Mexico in organizational communication and public personnel admin- istration. My adviser, Paul C. Feingold, introduced me to corporate America and inspired in me the desire to know more about the rela- tions among people who work. As a result, every job I’ve held—all in human resources, focusing on recruiting and coaching people through transitions—has been like a human research laboratory, enabling me to develop the means to fulfill my original promise.

Along with the main narrative that follo ws, you’re also about to read my research notes from all my career experiences, here called Recruiter’s Notes. These notes illustrate the main points in the narrative through the stories of other people’s and my adventures and misadventures in the world of wor k—seeking to convey down-home lessons enhanced by street-savvy intuition and refined by academic curiosity and practical human resources experience in a large, successful corporation.

My sincere hope is that you will be able to use this book to help y ou attract work that suits your purpose in life and that the book will thus empower you to enjoy your career choices for as long as you like. If you are able to achieve these goals using the book, my best hope for it will be achieved.

The largest por tion of my career, from 1980 to 1996, was spent with the Miller Brewing Company. I appreciate all the wonderful people in marketing there who I was able to assist during that special time, and the opportunity to work for some of the world’s finest human resources professionals, including Al Akins and D an Masta, who hired me; Ken Aron, my first boss; and Tom Thurman, who gave me continuous sup- port while I worked for Miller and later for Kraft Foods. I thank Paul Edmond and Jerry Misik, who taught me how to recruit, and David Brenner and John Dowell, whose friendship enabled me to endure.

I am grateful to Dave Welnetz, who has been my long-term career coach and mentor, and without whose help I would have never had the courage to pursue what has given me career contentment. I thank him

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Preface and Acknowledgments

for guiding my transitions from Miller to Kraft Foods and then to starting my own businesses. Similarly, I am grateful to the Career Coach Institute and Marcia Bench, who taught me the significant dif- ferences between human resources practitioner and career coach and also how to help other people find their own career contentment.

Several of the ideas in this book could not have been fully developed without the influence of numerous researchers in neurology, physics, and the behavioral sciences devoted to positive psychology, motivation, hypnotherapy, stress, resiliency, and survivor qualities. All these people and their inspirational works are listed in the further reading section.

Also benefiting this effort has been the advice and wisdom from col- leagues and leaders in the human resources, recruiting, career coaching, and outplacement communities. As a result of their review of and feed- back on the book, I am confident that more of these same people will agree that this information honestly r epresents the employment expe- rience and, more important, provides a refreshing alternative for peo- ple to use in preparing themselv es for incremental job changes and their overall career.

Thanks to my bo ys, B rian and Michael, who demonstrated great patience during my absences to write this book, and to the valued input of the new job seeker generation represented in part by my daughter, Sarah, my niece, Claire, and Betsy Thurman, each of whom is in the orientation phase of their overall career flow. I wish them great success. M any special thanks to my wife, Heli, for her everlasting patience and encouragement when debating several points in this book, and also for the blessing of the contentment we give each other.

As you progress through these pages, I hope you will discover a wealth of wisdom that will serve you well during each job search and through- out your entire career.

Jeffrey Garton January 2008

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