Reignite the sweet spot in your job

24 January 2016

Ah, that sweet spot that is the bliss of being totally engaged with your work and your career.  So many people start with it, loose it and want it back, with most career angst arising because you are not experiencing it. 

It is possible to find and maintain that sweet spot in your career and this article looks at the contrasting tale of two people I worked with recently and the different experience they have of their work and their career.

It was 7pm when Chrissie’s phone rang with a call from her partner.  As she looked at the screen she knew she was in trouble.  They were due out for dinner at 7:30pm and she still needed to get home and get changed!  It wasn’t that Chrissie had forgotten about dinner, she had been looking forward to it, she had simply got deep into her work and lost track of the time.  And this wasn’t the first time.  She would have some serious making up to do!  Chrissie found her work endlessly fascinating and engaging.  She would often find that time would just slip by and it would only be the grumbles of her stomach that would let her know she had worked through lunch. 

James worked with Chrissie and he just didn’t get her, and lately he had even been finding her annoying.  He did similar work to Chrissie, but he had to drag himself to work each day and was constantly struggling to have enough hours up his sleeve to have a day off.  To James the work they did was boring.  True he had been doing it longer than Chrissie, and it seemed a long time ago that he used to have that degree of engagement.  It wasn’t that James wasn’t proud of his work - he knew that the work they both did was important and that he did a good job, but for him it had all become a bit routine.  Chrissie’s enthusiasm in contrast was beginning to grate.  James had lost whatever groove he used to have and rather than try to get it back he was turning to resentment of those, like Chrissie, who did have it – not a good scenario.

James had simply been in his job too long and was too skilled at it –no longer finding any challenge in it.  The Theory of Flow as developed by leading psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gives insights into what is happening for James.  Flow is being in the groove.  It is the experience of being totally engaged in what you are doing.  Engaged to the extent that time becomes transformed – it slows down, or it speeds up (as it seemed to for Chrissie).  When experiencing Flow you feel in total control and have clarity about what you are doing.  In some way you get so involved in the activity that your sense of yourself and your separateness from what you are doing disappears.  A sense of Flow is often aligned with people being and doing their best and naturally when it occurs you want more of it.  Flow can be experienced in many domains of life – hobbies, sporting and physical activities, creative pursuits, problem solving and many other activities where you can be totally absorbed by what you are doing.  Work, believe it or not, is an area that creates great conditions for you to experience Flow.

Csikszentmihalyi’s research on Flow has identified that there are two key conditions that need to be present for people to experience Flow.  These are:

1.     That you are engaged in a task that has you using your skills at the upper end of your skill range, and

2.     That you are using your skills in service of a task that you find challenging, but not overwhelming.  That is, you hit the sweet spot where skill and challenge meet.  The following diagram illustrates how Flow works:

Chrissie regularly experienced Flow in her job because her skills in the area were still developing and she was using them at the upper level of the of skill range that she had.  James was missing out on experiencing Flow because his skills had developed too much and he was still working at the same level of challenge.

Again and again I see people disengaged with careers that they once found stimulating because they have failed to keep their skill level and their challenge level balanced.  You naturally become more skilled at a role the longer you are in it, and once you become skilled at something you cannot drop your skill level.  To still experience Flow the only option you have available is to lift the level of challenge in the role.  If you don’t, like James, boredom is often the outcome.  Leading on from boredom is disengagement, and it is a slippery slope to becoming a disgruntled, toxic, negative employee – which no one wants to experience. 

You will often intuitively know you have reached the upper reaches of challenge in a role.  What often happens at this time is that you will seek new challenges by applying for a new job.  This is a great option, but it is not the only one.  Another option is to lift the challenge level in the role that you are already in, especially when roles are scarce or while you wait for the right opportunity to come along.  Doing this helps you avoid career decisions that are reactive and desperate.

Sometimes you might find that the other end of the Flow scale is your reality and the skills you have are not enough for the challenges you face in your role.  This leads to anxiety and stress.  When you are bored the only option you have is to lift the challenge level.  When anxiety or stress is your reality you have the option of either dropping the challenge level or lifting your skill level.  In either scenario it is worth taking the time to reap the benefits of doing work that has you experience Flow.

If you are feeling that you have lost that sweet spot in your job the Flow Model might just have some insights for you.  Here are some actions and questions to help you explore this concept:

1.  Make a list of the tasks that you do, either at work or in your private life, in which you lose track of yourself when you do them.  Ask yourself how you could you do more of these tasks.  Are there tasks that used to give you this sense of Flow that no longer do so?  How could you bring more challenge to these tasks?

2.  Something that often supports Flow arising in the workplace is the presence of clear and compelling goals.  If you don’t have current work or career goals take some time to create one or two, especially some that stretch you.

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