Still Haven’t Found What You’re Digging For?

You’ve been in your job for 20 years, and work is now sapping your energy. It’s been a good run, for the most part. You’ve risen in the organization to a senior leadership position.

You have a great income thanks to a lot of hard work on your part. Your relationship with your team is suffering, and you are seeing people leave the company at an alarming rate.

Now you know you need to transition to more meaningful work so that you feel as if your job matters. You remember how excited you were when straight out of college you landed a great job. It had a tremendous promise of advancement and a significant income. That was a long time in a universe far away.

Perhaps you can relate to one of the seven dwarves from the Disney movie “Snow White.” Snow White’s adopted family is a group of miners who go to work singing, “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho it’s off to work we go”…

They do it joyfully. However, in preparation for this piece, I went back and read the lyrics of the song. The last line in this stanza blew me away.

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig from early morn till night

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig up everything in sight

We dig up diamonds by the score

A thousand rubies, sometimes more

But we don’t know what we dig ’em for.

Thousands of rubies later, do you really know what you’re working for?

Are you one of the dwarves:

Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Sneezy?

Or are you Happy? Are you falling asleep? Going through the motions? Hopeless about your situation? Too afraid to risk?

Trying to ward off the cold? Or are you fulfilled, grateful and joyful?

Just another Groundhog Day

Remember the movie “Ground Hog Day”? Phil Connors, a news reporter for a Pittsburgh paper, is covering Punxatawny, Pennsylvania’s Ground Hog Day? Phil is an obnoxious character who, under duress, must report on that mundane event that takes him away from new breaking stories in the city. He’s better than that.

He lives that “nightmare” when every subsequent day is Ground Hog Day when he must go through the day with the same host of characters doing the same thing…every single day, He splashes through the same puddles to witness the sign at least six more weeks of a dreary winter.

Only by coming to his senses and taking the time each day (which he has a lot of, by the way), he studies his behavior. Well into the story, he realizes that he has the opportunity to make a singular shift toward the positive. By changing his behavior, eventually, he steps out of Ground Hog Day and into a new day with is freshly fallen snow and bright white sunlight.

The movie is a parable about the choices we make. It’s about the meaning we create once we learn that we can make better choices and make a sincere, loving contribution to others.

Perhaps you are a Phil whose alarm clock signals just another ordinary day. Maybe you it’s you who wakes up to the same old thing with the same old cast of characters doing the same old thing. The company sets the goals. You meet them but are uninspired to do more, and even worse, you’re far from inspiring others.

Here are two of the most famous songs dealing with despair and malaise in life and the hope of something more. Be consoled by the notion that you are far from alone.

You can’t always get what you want.

Consider Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” where Mick Jagger laments the fact that his journey into sex, drugs, and politics is meaningless, and he is settling for second best.

Profoundly, he adds, “But if you try real hard, you get what you need.”

Remember U2’s hit song “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for? Bono sings of a spiritual quest that is not yet finished. It’s the choices he’s made, but good and bad actions keep him running toward something more. Still, he believes in a future of the Kingdom of God where all the colors bleed into one. Keep on running and live what you’re looking for.

Do I stay, or do I go?

If you’ve gotten this far in this article, you may identify with the trying real hard part but may be less clear about getting what you need. Hopefully, you do have even a little semblance of what you’re looking for. You are right at the place for something miraculous to happen. It’s critical to examine why you are where you are professionally and personally.

There are two critical questions to ask in making a successful transition, whether you stay in your company and do something else or leave.

• How self-aware are you of your contribution to how things stand?
• How much do you know about how others think of you?

Take an inventory.

Answer the following questions. There are no right or wrong answers.

• A 2017 report by Gallup indicates that almost 70% of people are not engaged. You are not alone. Many of them attribute to losing respect for their managers. How about you? Is this a contributing factor in your wanting to change?
• Do you have friends at work, or do you feel isolated from others
• ?What would it take, if anything, for you to feel supported by your boss? What would she say about you? Is there an opportunity for you to shift your relationship with her?
• How much do you feel connected to the purpose of the organization? What would it take to influence this? Do you have a mentor?
• How does your organization support your work-life balance?
• Are there opportunities to design your job to re-design your job to be more in alignment with your values? (Probably a corollary question would be: Are you clear on what your values are?)

You have an opportunity.

How would your teammates answer those questions? What would it mean to your job satisfaction if you could help them love their jobs and feel that their work is meaningful?

What behaviors are keeping you from making a change?

Wearing the “golden handcuffs:”

British Philosopher Alan Watts, author of The Way of Zen wrote this: “If you say that money is the most important thing, you’re spending your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things that you don’t like doing to go on living, that is, to go on doing things you don’t like doing — which is stupid.”

Attaching to Prestige

In his 2006 article “How to Do What We Love,” Paul Graham talks about how prestige is at the vortex of a meaningless present. “Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world.” Prestige is a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.”

Fearing of the Unknown

“You gotta be willing to fail… if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far,” Steve Jobs cautioned. “There is no such thing as failure — failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.” The fact is that no decision is the final decision unless you deem it so.

What is the risk if you continue to dig, dig, dig but don’t know what you’re digging for? Navigating through ambiguity in a new direction takes courage. Not doing so is tragic. Be curious. Lean into your purpose. Help others to discover theirs. That’s the best meaning of all.