Congruence is the key to a fulfilling career

According to Merriam-Webster.com, congruence is a synonym of harmony. Harmony is described as a pleasing arrangement of parts. Think of your favorite symphony or maybe the latest Taylor Swift album for reference.

Harmony is something that we all strive for in life. Balance between family, self, career, relationships, faith, and so on. If one or more of these feels out of whack, it throws the others off, and one may feel a sense of imbalance or tension in their life.

If you’ve ever felt that imbalance, you’re not alone. We all go through it!

In time, I’ve found that there are more and more instruments in the orchestra of life that can either contribute to or interrupt the harmony that I strive for. These new instruments are responsibilities such as children, relationships, careers, and health goals. All of which are fantastic privileges yet remain components of life that deserve nurturing and attention.

For the sake of today’s post, I’m going to write about harmony and congruence in careers. We spend a lot of time at work dedicated to our chosen careers.

If you’re in a job or career path that is unfulfilling, you will likely be pretty miserable or feel off at work. Nobody wants to spend their time that way.

So how can we identify whether we are on the right career path?

You need to bring your sights into focus and identify if what you're doing is fulfilling and releasing positive energy in your day-to-day. This positive energy is what gives you a sense of harmony at work.

Ready for a silly, yet applicable, analogy?

Imagine you’re Moana (from the Disney movie Moana). You’re navigating your boat with the demigod Maui to the island of Motunui to steal back the heart of Te Fiti and save the people of your village from a great evil.

I may have watched this with my daughters 100 times. You’re welcome :)

You’re a wavefarer who relies on the stars for navigation

What if those stars were blurry and out of focus?

Could you get to where you’re going?

It would be a pretty harrowing feeling for poor Moana if she couldn’t even find her way along her journey to save her people.

In this obscure analogy, think of congruence as the island of Te Fiti.

There are several factors affecting Moana’s journey

-Her confidence in her ability to navigate her boat

-Whether she feels justified in the rationale behind her journey

-Her drive and inherent desire to complete her quest. Will she pursue it until the end, or is she willing to give up?

-Does Moana believe that “stealing the heart of Te Fiti” is a just cause to save her people?

The following breakdown of how to achieve congruence is a spin on the concept of Sales Congruence, as coined by Integrity Solutions. You can read more about this in the book Integrity Selling for the 21st Century: How to Sell the Way that People Want to Buy by Ron Willingham.

There are four key components that need to be in balance for one to achieve harmony in one’s career

View of Abilities

How do you feel about your ability to complete your job? Do you feel like you possess the necessary skills to contribute as a team member or to your customers?

Daniel couldn’t win the All-Valley Tournament unless he was confident in his abilities following Mr. Miyagi’s teachings. PS: The flute music playing in the background of this scene is epic.

Values

Do your day-to-day activities at work align with your intrinsic values? It may be tough to be a cattle farmer if you are a practicing vegan.

Commitment to Activities

Do you naturally keep up with and maintain pace with what is important in your profession? Imagine being a hairstylist who stopped learning how to style hair before the 1990s. You would have missed out on a decades worth of “bowl cuts” and “Rachel from Friends” customers.

Belief in one’s company

Do you feel like your company is the best in the industry at what it does? Can you honestly represent an inferior widget (or service) and feel good about providing that service to others?

You could, if dishonesty aligned with your values or if the pay was appropriate. This may sound harsh, but it’s an honest question that the individual must ask themselves.

Let’s take a look at Dave, The REI Employee (starring Nick Offerman). This will be a fun analogy for me, as I am clearly a fan of REI, per my post, I Love You, REI.

We clearly see that Dave is all in. He’s an outdoorsman who’s literally and figuratively “carried the bag”.

(Belief in one’s abilities)

Dave shares industry knowledge with his customer (played by Robert Redford) from a point of experience and passion, as described by his knowledge of the hiking pack and light-weight rain cover.

(Commitment to activities)

We can also assume, based on his no-look grab of the poop shovel, that he’s done this before. Dave possesses the strong belief, equally shared by REI, of conserving nature: “Take home your memories, leave only your footprints.”

(Values & Belief in one’s company)

Dave looks, dresses, and embodies the role.

It’s safe to say that Dave has career congruence

Let’s throw in some variables and see if Dave would still love his career.

Imagine that Dave has never backpacked. How would he feel about making a gear suggestion to a father and son about to embark on a trip?

What if Dave thought that people should stay out of nature? How inspired would he be to help them go an explore the outdoors?

What if Dave thought of REI as some evil-doing corporate conglomerate that poisoned the earth? I don’t think he’d be as excited to help them generate more revenue to continue with their dastardly pursuit of profits.

“Focus and simplicity. Once you get there, you can move mountains.”
-Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs holding the first Macintosh computer, The Macintosh 128K, Woodside, CA, US, 1984.
The Original Mac was introduced on January 24, 1984 and it’s historically known for kick-starting the PC revolution. https://iconicimages.net/photo/ns-pe018-steve-jobs/

I love this quote, which comes from a giant whose focus has impacted all of our lives (as I type this on my MacBook Air).

Give it a shot!

Utilize the tools of introspection as highlighted above. You may find, that with focus, clarity and congruence that you too will have the ability to move mountains in your life, regardless of how big or small they may be!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harmony

https://www.integritysolutions.com/

https://iconicimages.net/photo/ns-pe018-steve-jobs/