Episode 33: Work should feel good. Here’s how to make it energize you, with Josh Allan Dykstra

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you! 

There’s a troubling trend happening in workplaces across the world.

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you arrive at the office to find a to-do list a mile high waiting in your inbox. In one of those emails, your boss gave you a brand new project…but it’s exactly the type of project you asked *not* to do anymore.

(What the actual hell?!)

You’ve done this kind of project before, so it’s not like you’re not being snobby or prissy about learning something new. And, sure, you know how to do it, but you also know there are other people who can do it better (and who enjoy it more).

The project definitely isn’t in your Zone of Genius. (Or even in your Zone of Excellence. It might technically fall within your Zone of Competence, but it drains you faster than streaming videos zaps your phone battery life.)

But your boss says, “Listen, you know how to do it, and it needs to be done, so it doesn’t really matter that it drains you and doesn’t use your gifts right now. We need you need to grin and bear it. Suck it up, buttercup, and please be grateful you have a job.”

Sound familiar? You’ve just experienced the “no good deed goes unpunished” situation at work. Once you offer to do a task one single time — out of the goodness of your heart — you suddenly and inexplicably become the go-to person for that work…even if you hate it and aren’t the best person for it. (Order lunch for your noon meeting? You’re the default office caterer. Proofread your team’s proposal? Defacto document quality control guru.)

Josh Allan Dykstra, the CEO of Helios and an energy and strengths expert, argues that this kind of treatment at work is pretty darn dehumanizing. He says, “The crazy thing, which almost borders on a human rights issue for me, is for us to put up with a world (that we invented) that has systemized work and allows this system of absolute dehumanization to continue unchecked. It’s obscene for us to say that 87.7% of people are not passionate about the things they spend the majority of their life doing. That is crazy. We can’t keep doing it.”

And, the data shows that your boss asking you to work outside your strengths also results in lower overall productivity in the workplace. That means every time your boss does this to you in the name of “getting shit done,” it’s actually actively undermining your ability to produce value for the organization.

If you’re surprised, you’ll love listening to Josh on Episode 33 of The Career Clarity Show.

He’s a advocate for creating the distinction between all the things you *can* do, and the activities you get energy from doing. He comes by his expertise and passion honestly: he started out his career trying to be a professional musician, and went through a career crisis of his own when he decided music wasn’t meant to be his forever career.

As he was evaluating possible new career directions, he had a few core guiding principles. One was that he should be able to leverage his strengths in performing and getting on stages into a great role in the corporate world, but another was that he wanted work to feel good. He wanted to work in a way that honored what he loved about music, and, while it would be a different set of work tasks, he wanted work that left him feeling energized instead of drained at the end of the day.

What a revolutionary concept, right? Work should feel good instead of like a drag or a total energy suck.

Just imagine leaving work each evening excited to keep working on your projects the next day. Still having energy left to give and happily hopping over to the gym, playing with your kids for an extra half hour, getting excited about cooking something new, or investing that excess pep into fun creative projects after dinner.

Getting out of bed the next morning is no problem. You want to grow and learn even more, and almost feel this magnetic pull towards your projects. You experience that losing-track-of-time “flow” feeling and really feel like you’re operating in your Zone of Genius.

Josh believes this doesn’t have to be a dream. We just have to stop thinking about work as using your capabilities and instead think of ways to work using your energizers.

Anybody who got good grades in school knows the difference between the “capable” and “energized” operating state. You got the A in chemistry because you “had” to, pulling yourself kicking and screaming through each homework assignment even though you felt drained afterwards. And, despite loving your English class (or biology or calculus), you didn’t get to invest more time or energy there because you were too busy spreading your energy across less-motivating classes.

Josh and the team at Helios are cracking the code on identifying your own intrinsic motivation using a tool called the Strengthscope. It’s an instrument that’s certified by the British Psychological Institution (more than most other personality assessment tools can say…) that helps you really zero in on your energizers instead of only looking at your skills.

Their counter-culture assertion is that it’s more important to lean into your energizers than your existing capabilities (gasp!) because you can always get better at your energizers further (so you get more capability AND more energy), but you can’t typically make your skills *magically* feel more energizing or inspiring for you quite as easily. (On LinkedIn, people have endorsed me as being great at “Event Management,” but you better believe that my wedding will be the LAST big event I ever willingly plan. #SuchADrainer #LearningLessons #TheJediMasterIsStillAPadowanSometimes)

Cal Newport argues that skill mastery leads to passion in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, but it’s not a guarantee — and he concedes that the area you want to master needs to be at least a little intrinsically motivating on its own before you’ll invest the time and energy into it to develop true passion and excitement.

Starting to pay attention to where you gain energy and enthusiasm in your day is a great way to develop self-awareness. This internal feedback loop is a muscle that needs honing and refining throughout your life and will serve you well in making smarter career decisions in the short and long term.

Want to shortcut the process of identifying your own energizers? At Career Clarity, we facilitate the Strengthscope energizer assessment (retail value $95) with a 45-minute coaching debrief to help you identify when you’re doing your best work, give you language to describe your top energizers, differentiate between energizers and drainers, and create your energy-centric growth plan to help you feel more alive at work — both tomorrow, and for the rest of your career. Having this kind of knowledge can lead to more happiness and energy every single day — and a clearer sense of whether you can make the job you have into the one you want…or if it’s time to move into a new challenging role.

Book your Strengthscope energizer assessment and debrief coaching call here.

Want to learn more about our strategic framework for successful career change? Download The Roadmap to Career Fulfillment ebook right here!

SHOW NOTES:

• Josh on the Web
• Helios
• Josh’s Upgrade Your Energy
• Career Clarity LIVE in Englewood, Colorado use the “GCC” discount code to get $30 off your earlybird ticket purchased before 3/13 — AND get access to Lisa’s Energy Management and Flow training for FREE
• Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career eBook

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