Has your motivation to work declined? Maybe your values have shifted.
I was talking to a colleague the other day, and she said that between the pandemic and a few life events over the past few years, she just isn’t as professionally ambitious anymore. She has lots of things she would like to accomplish — they just aren’t related to work. Another colleague has reduced her work hours in order to spend more time with her kids.
Over the past few years, I have watched friends and colleagues change jobs or shift their emphasis from professional advancement to public service, personal satisfaction or family engagement.
Many of these shifts reflect a change in people’s underlying values. Values determine what people think is important, which in turn influences motivation. Here are a few examples:
A person who values achievement is someone who wants to be successful and wants to be seen as successful by others.
A person who values security is focused on personal and group safety.
A person who values benevolence wants to help others and to do good works.
A person who values tradition values the way things have been done in the past and the importance of institutions like family and religion.
When I wrote my book “Bring Your Brain to Work,” I interviewed a number of people who went through career changes in midlife. Two common themes emerged from these discussions. First, many of these career switchers experienced a shift in their values, which changed their relationship to their work and their career trajectory. For example, a lawyer who had focused on achievement early in his career came to value benevolence and chose to use his expertise to run a nonprofit. Second, it was common for a shift in values to be caused by some kind of personal crisis, such as an illness, injury or the death of a loved one.
The pandemic led all of us to face a number of significant challenges. Just about everyone has either gotten COVID or knows someone who has. Indeed, many of us know people who have died from the disease. On top of that, disruptions to the workplace have led people to rethink the importance of their jobs relative to other ways they might spend their time.
Chances are, if you look back at your pre-pandemic self and compare your values from that era to now, you may find that there has been a significant shift. That shift in values drives changes in where you want to put your effort.
For some people, that has meant looking for alternative career paths. For others, it has meant seeking additional education in order to open up new paths. For many, this shift in values has led to a de-emphasis of work relative to other life goals.