Doubtful beauty

Whenever somebody compliments me, my first reaction is denial. I deny the compliment, I make excuses and I even forget to thank for the kind words. Even if the words make me blush and feel chuffed, I doubt their honesty. Not because I question the person's honesty, but because I do not feel that I deserve those words.
On the other hand, I love complimenting others and I do that quite a few times a day. When it comes to giving compliments, I am always certain that the 'complimentees' deserve every single word.

Beauty really depends on the eye of the beholder. For me, beauty is a massive suitcase accommodating tons of versatile definitions. One of them is details that I find extraordinarily beautiful and I like focusing on those unique features. For example, I love freckles! I have symmetrical ones on my index fingers, my boyfriend has a perfect line of three freckles on his cheek, my brother has a heart shaped freckle on his cheek, my best friend has a tiny one just above her lip corner.. I have not seen anyone with the same pattern of freckles and I have not seen anyone with a not cool freckle!
Also, I love the uniqueness of smiles. When my nephew smiles, his smile moves up to the left and he winks his left eye, when one of my friends smiles, she covers her mouth and I move my focus on her happiness reflecting eyes - these are all unique patterns.

Sometimes I just can't explain why something is beautiful to me. Maybe 7 years ago I was watching one of those "Good morning Vilnius" programmes on the TV. They were talking about arts and for some reason there was quite a big episode dedicated to Claude Monet. For the first time ever I got to see some of his works. When "The Waterlily Pond" appeared on the screen, it brought me to tears (literally). As I know now, it was the very first time I experienced catharsis.

Just a few days ago I went to London for the first time and visited the National Gallery. I stepped into one of the rooms and teared up immediately. I had absolutely no idea that there were Monet's paintings on the walls of the gallery. I happened to see the Waterlilies in the real world, just a few centimeters away from me. I don't know what exactly about the Waterlilies makes me feel this way.. Neither I am a fan of impressionism nor I am so emotional about the other works of Monet. I somehow just feel that unity of beauty.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The other day I got to see a fascinating video. Shea filmed her schoolmates' reactions when telling them that they are beautiful. The reactions varied: most of the people smiled and called Shea a cutie, someone called her goofy, someone seemed confused.

versatility of the reactions:

I can relate to all of these reactions as I've felt that way at least once in my life. As I mentioned, especially familiar are those confused ones. Why is it hard to accept compliments sometimes? I reckon that the reaction to compliments does reflect self-esteem. Feeling uncomfortable when receiving compliments should indicate lower levels of self-esteem whereas feeling comfortable in such situation should indicate that a person has confidence in self a.k.a self-worth.

Self-worth is one of the keys to great success (at least according to Travis Bradberry, contributor to Forbes). And I accompany him 100%.. High self-worth doesn't come with sinful pride, it is accompanied by respect to others, dignity, tolerance and believing in self.

It has taken me ages to gain decent self-respect and understand that I am beautiful too. Well, I must admit, I am still on the process and I still struggle horribly. My friends are fabulous and really help me with that - they keep telling me things about myself that I kind of ignore. I believe that people who derogate themselves just abandon the amazing things they have done and the challenges they've conquered. They focus on those teeny tiny issues that have never worked out because of so many sub-reasons.
I know how that feels and how hard it is to get out of self-derogation. I also know that I am the one who will have to live with myself for the rest of my life so I better start loving myself.

JOB EMBEDDEDNESS. I am not making words up.

While I am waiting for my book to arrive, I decided to write a little post sharing some insights after talking to one of my friends. I asked her a few work related questions: her motivations, dream job definition and etc. What I heard was some precisely sharp and thought provoking answers that inspired me to google-scholar some papers...

So I began with questioning her motivations at work. Shelly confirmed that salary and work experience per se are on top of the list for her. Later on, when wondering about the reasons why people sleepwalk through their careers, she contemplated that being disconnected to the group one works with and the organisation itself should be the number one. Her idea of why people do not change anything about it was lack of self-confidence.

Once she mentioned the latter, I immediately realized that I can illustrate this well. I do not feel confident enough (yet) to even apply for my dream job. I am constantly on the process to improve myself - to reach the bar I raised for myself. I only hope that it is an ending process. Obviously I am going to advance and challenge myself all the time, I just want to learn to be fully happy about myself at any stage of this development. Uhh, enough of this deep digging mind flow! Now back to business:

Since I had some other ideas why people would stay at the jobs that they are not happy with (feeling obligated to the company; being attached; being comfortable with the environement; not fancying a hassle of looking for a new job and many many more), I decided to look for some scholarly explanations. Traditional theories state that attachment to colleagues and the workplace is the key to explain the issue. However, there is a parallel explanation called job embededness (introduced by Mitchell et al. (2001)).

Monika getting confused

Job embeddedness is a totallity of influences keeping an employee at work. The term can be explained by connecting two existing ideas:
The embedded figures test:

Embedded figures are immersed in their background. They are attached to it and are hard to separate. They become part of the surroundings.

pg.7; here

Kurt Lewin's field theory:

[the] theory asserts that people have a perceptual life space in which the aspects of their lives are represented and connected. These connections can be few or many, as well as close or distant. 

  

pg. 7; here

There are many ways to be embedded and the strength of each influence can be different. By the way, the influences don't necessarily correlate to each other.  
The crucial aspects of job embeddedness are:
1. Links: the magnitute to which employees are linked to colleagues and activities; 
2. Fit: the range to which the job fits into the holistic life of the person;
3. Sacrifice: the comfort of breaking the links - what can be given up if leaving the job. 

The authors describe each of the influences meticulously and clearly. I will try to pass it to you a bit more concisely as these aspects are essential in explaining why we stay at work or quit it. 

Links

These are all formal and informal relationships between the employee, colleagues, community and the company. In other words, links are social, psychological, and financial strings attaching the person to his or her work. For example, my close friendship with my manager, my dependence on the salary and another hundred of other links.

The magnitute to which the person is attached to the company depends on the number of those links. Importantly, the direction of the relationship is positive meaning that the more links there are, the stronger the relationship is. As I said, there is about a hundred strong links for me, therefore I am strongly bound to the company. Significantly, the importance of these links is personal so it differs. One link can be perceived as crucial for me whereas the same link can have a minor impact for another person. Not every employee has such a bond with the manager nor everyone is as dependent on salary as much/little as I am.

Fit

Fit illustrates how well does an organisation fit within the employee's environment. Both the company and the current job must match such vital aspects of the employee's life as beliefs, goals and dreams for the future. Just like before, the relationship between fit and the likelihood to feel tied to the organisation is positive: the better fitting in the person feels, the higher the likelihood is.
Obviously, an organisation doesn't exist on its own - each is placed in a community and has an environment. These might differ from the organisation completely or might create a holistic unit. For instance, I love my workplace and all aspects about it, but I hate my commute to work, the city I live in. I guess, at this point other factors (links and sacrifice) and the strength of the fit at the actual work determine if I want to stay at work or I prefer quitting.

Sacrifice

It measures both psychological and materialistic cost of leaving the job. For example, if I quite my supervisor's position, I lose the beautiful relationships I've formed, the salary, staff events etc. When the amount of these costs increases, it gets harder to quit a job.
Some obvious sacrifices are salaries and other financial benefits, however, there are some inner potential factors that are strikingly essential. Some of them would be job stability and growth. Like Steffi mentioned before, challenging herself (self-growth) is crucial for her. Shelly was on the same front with her. I bet there are quite a few more people who believe the same way. Therefore, it would be one of the things hard to sacrifice or important to seek for. 

Reading the paper made me filter the information through my own prism. I must say everything makes sense to me and I can confirm that at this current point in life, I have quite a few links at work, even though the job does not fit into my dreams and lifestyle too well, and there are not too many things I would feel bad about sacrificing...
As I mentioned above, the only reason I'm still at work is that I feel too oblicated to stay at the job and do not feel confident enough to apply to my dream job.
I surely will explore these issues in the upcoming post!

P.S. I would love to point out that the paper is really interesting and easy to read. Also, the authors give a vast list of studies supporting each statement. It is really worth peeking at them if you fancy to know a bit more about the topic.
P.S. 2. yes, I actually created some words. Forgive me, but language is alive!

Intro to MBTI & CAREERS

Monika wondering about the relationship between MBTI types and careers

ISTJ  ISFJ  INFJ  INTJ  ISTP  ISFP  INFP  INTP  

ESTJ  ESFJ  ENFJ  ENTJ  ESTP  ESFP  ENFP  ENTP

this mash of letters might sound very random for someone who hasn't heard of MBTI... This unknowness ends now though!

MBTI (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator) is a test created by a mother and her daughter - Myer and Briggs - who believed that individuals approach the world divergently. Based on people's individualities they find particular tasks easier or more challenging than others. So they see the world differently. I believe that everything has a pattern, human behaviour especially. MBTI generalises people into 16 personality types (yep, the ones above).  Basically, the indicator categorises people based on 4 functions (these are scales rather than strict categories; i.e. I am generally extroverted, but if I am surrounded by 20 loud and vivid strangers I will most likely be an observant that time):

1. Extroversions (E)  -- Introversion (I)

2. Sensing (S) -- Intuition (N)

3. Thinking (T) -- Feeling (F)

4. Judging (J) -- Perceiving (P)

Clear description of each four functions (letters). Taken from here.

You can complete the test by clicking here, it takes only 10 minutes to complete it and the answers are quite specific, extensive and nicely worded.
The Internet is full of eye-catching, interesting and funny variations of MBTI types. It can tell your animal type, appropriate "Harry Potter" character and many more...

Throughout the 16 types, some tend to have clear similarities and some have distinct differences. It is suggested that firstly we are attracted by people with different ideas and lifestyles, but as the time passes by we are more keen on sticking to people similar to ourselves. It all makes sense to me - I am usually surprised (or shocked) by others' ideas and like to stick around them to get to know why people behave the way they do. Later on, however, I find myself clashing with some of those people who are a bit too far away from my values or their ideas are too shocking. I believe they feel the same way about me as they never message me back..

I have been interested in the relationship between employees; themselves and their organisation and their working styles depending on their personality types.
I am aware of companies paying attention to that by, for instance, forming groups of employees working together based on their MBTI types. Since I want to pursue my career towards making employees happy, I just ordered myself a book digging this whole issue deep, very deep! Yes, I have already read a few bits and pieces from the book and I am quite upset I can't hold the paperback in my hands before going to bed tonight!

Tadam - the book:
Kroeger, O., Thuesen, J. M., Rutledge, H., (2002). Type Talk at Work (Revised): How the 16 Personality Types Determine Your Success on the Job. 


People are acknowledged as the crucial and essential component for companies' success. Each employee has an innate and preferred working style. To do the job best, they need to do it their way. 

Steffi

 

Meet Steffi

Steffi, a 23 y.o. who teaches the world to smile Q: Are you employed? A: Yes, I am employed. Q: How do you feel in your job? A: I really like my job. I think it is a very nice job as far as jobs go. I get to work with people, I get to work with kids. I work in a team with people that are my age, share my values education-wise. It is very diverse because you get to try different activities with the kids and basically whatever comes to your mind - you can   just try out with them. You get to go outside a lot, you get to play outside a lot.. because you're with kids, you gotta be spontaneous, you gotta be fun, you gotta have fun. You can't create fun environment for the kids if you're not having fun yourself. And I get to learn a lot of new things because I am new to the job. So I learn a lot of about the administrative side, I learn a lot about how to put programmes, how to engage the little ones, how can I engage a small child better than the older child - because of course a two year old has different needs to a six year old. I just think that it is a good job. Even the other day I just suggested that we all just go on a swing and our colleague pushes us and we play together. Or we were watching a cat, just like standing there for good 15 minutes watching a cat climb between branches and come down again. And you get to marvel at the wonders of life and teach them to the kids. You also get to see the world through the different perspective because a child doesn't see the categories and the established rules which we have and we are so used to. So I think I really do like my job.  Q: Do you want to stay at the job or change it? A: For now, I definitely want to stay in the job because there is a lot to learn. I am only like 3-4 months in now, so there is still a lot for me to explore, and get my head around and grow together as a team. But I think that come next year I probably do want to change my job - but not before next summer.  Q: Why? A: As much fun as my job is, I kinda have missed educational side to it. When I went to university, I was so used to being challenged on a very sophisticated academic level all the time. Like you just are thrown questions or articles at and you would have to answer them all. Working with the kids is challenging itself and it is a challenge that I am not used to because you have to let your inhibition go away completely. I am really glad about that experience but at the same time I miss being challenged academically.  I miss having a more mental aspect to the whole thing. Also I kinda miss teaching.. since I have the little ones what you teach them is very basic needs-based coping with challenges like climbing a ladder, using the bathroom, washing your hands. I’ve never realized what a complex and completely mind-blowing thing can be if someone tells you to wash your hands. You have to switch on that water and then you let it pour over your hands, then you make sure that you get the dirt off your hands, then you use the soap, then you wash off the soap, then you switch off the water, you take the towel without gripping it to pieces, then you dry your hands, then you open the bin and you put the stuff in the bin.. it is a challenge but it isn’t the kind of challenge I'm looking for necessarily. And I think I would get bored in time if I don’t have a challenge that is more concerned with a science per se. I am a tutor in my spare time and just seeing how kids understand language is much more sophisticated.  Especially because I love languages and I think I really want to teach something more academically. I  wanna teach something that is not necessarily to do with basic motor skills but slightly more sophisticated, moral, knowledge-based things and I think because of that I might want to try something else. Also because I do miss science and I might even go back into science just because it's been a very enriching experience.   Q: What are the key qualities of a dream job for you? A: I think that is a really difficult question and I don’t think that I have all the answers to it yet because I don’t think I've got enough experience with jobs yet to really say that “oh, this is what I wanna do!”. I've only worked at 4 different positions in my life so far but I think what’s definitely a key thing for me is working with people. I love sharing ideas, I love hearing other people's ideas and I think I would really need to work in a team. Working independently I don’t think is quite for me.. I need to get feedback, Ii need to be involved with others. Even in research where you   carry out testing other people and were you have frequent meetings with supervisors. I think that is really important for me. I think it is also important that the job challenges me all the time. I don’t wanna have to face the same stuff over and over again, which is why I love working with people. Judging from my current job, one day the child might struggle to put on a shoe, and on the next day it might be fine but “oh, how do you put on the jacket?”. 1 need a very challenging level, I need to feel that my job challenges my knowledge. I have to keep learning. I think especially since after university, I've really missed learning and I need to learn new things everyday. If I don’t learn something I get bored. So because of that I think it is also important that I work in the field that I have to challenge myself and be like “okaaay, so I’ve known this before but maybe this time it works differently”. I don’t even know, I need to educate myself.. Bringing my hobbies in is also a big quality. Maybe a job where I either work hours that permit me to go outside or have a job that actually takes me outside. I couldn’t stand being inside an office 24/7 or having a tiny window where you hear birds - that is not enough. I need to be outside, I need to be able to breathe fresh air at least once a day. I guess I preferably would do a job where I get to move around a bit.  Q: Why do you want to have a job? Is it for money, fulfillment, challenges, anything else or everything in together?  A: I’m not sure where I stand because I’m not sure what kind of career I want. I think personally, I want something diverse. I  don’t wanna stick with the same field all the time. I’m just gonna go with the flow I guess. I've got a lot of friends who are very unsure of what they wanna do and where they wanna go. They’ve got these little things they hold on to: “my parents can pay my bills, so I’m gonna go for more traveling/I wanna see the world, so I’m gonna go around the world..; I have friends who are gonna save the world. It is so different for everyone. Most people after stressing out for awhile get to the point where they are like” you know, that doesn’t matter that much as long as I can survive”. Because of that I learnt to be more chilled about it. First, I want to learn my strengths and my qualities and then see where I am and who I am; what about my current situation I would like to change. Like I said, I feel like I need to be educated more and I need more intellectual challenge. Good - so I know this and I can look for jobs that are more intellectually challenging next year. I'm definitely gonna not risk everything and be just like “oh f**k it, I don’t need a job - jobs are overrated”, but I think that it is important to look at my personal growth. If it doesn’t work out for me - bad luck for me, and I would hopefully find some job to pay something. It is more about my personality at the moment than a career per se - but I don’t know what career I would pick now if I had to.   Q: What are your priorities? A: As for my priorities, I am not sure. It is definitely not the money. I think money-wise it should pay something and I should be able to survive on it but it doesn’t need to be extraordinary amounts of money. What I think is very important for me is fulfillment. I need to feel like I’m actually doing something. I go crazy and sad, really genuinely upset if I feel like the things that I’m doing have no purpose what so ever. Since that really gets to me it is really important for me to find the way to do something that will allow me to make a difference and to feel like I’m actually changing something. It is the same with challenges. If I do a job were I'm ok, I am doing alright but I’m not actually doing anything, you know, change things, that doesn’t work for me either. I need to find something new, for example now because I don’t feel intellectually challenged much in my job, I’m looking for side things that I could do to educate myself. For now my priorities are always having a job, always being employed, being able to stand on my own two feet. I think that is the key thing for your personal wellbeing - if you can’t sustain yourself, you get upset. At least personally I don’t wanna have to rely on other people to make my life. I mean it is ok sometimes, but not in a long run. And then I really need a fulfilling job. I guess it needs to be balanced. Although, if I get a very well paid job that I don’t even care about, I wouldn’t take it. I would always take the job that pays ok that I feel happy with. I've seen people in my family that are unhappy with their jobs and there is nothing worse than having to drag yourself out of bed everyday. I much prefer the way it is right now where I wake up and yeah, maybe sometimes I am tired, but usually I wake up and I’m like “oh, yay, work!”. I don’t feel bad about it and that something that is worth a lot.  I thank Steffi a lot for very explicit answers. She feels more chilled about the future than a lot of people that I know who recently graduated (myself included). I take her words into account and rethink every sentence she said a few times. There is a lot for me to take and put on my 'dream job' list. As she emphasized, personal growth is one of her top priorities, that includes challenging herself academically, moving forwards, not sticking to dogmas and being open to learn new things. Learning learning learning is the key. Learning about myself, learning new things about the world, the surroundings and others. I will only be able to be happy about my career choices when I I know what I really want and who I really am.   I once made a little bucket list for myself, but after I got into my current job, I forgot to take care of myself and my growth. I guess, I am going to dig that bucket list out and going to add a few more things into it..

   

BACKGROUND

When I was a teeny tiny Monikute, I was often questioned what do I want to be when I grow up. The answers were quite consistent throughout the childhood years. I was either going to be a princess or a policeman on a horse. I have never answered the question "a fulfilled and happy employee". Don't think so that many of us have answered it that way either. 

When I was in high school, I had a vague idea what career pathway I should take. Then, changed the idea completely at the end of my first year in uni. But still, when answering the question I was focused on occupation not the state it would make me feel. For many occupation = the state of mind and sums up the general well being at work. I don't see it that way though, my dream job title might not necessarily involve my dream working conditions.

Only at university I realized that the self growth is at least as important as the career growth. I was conditioned to bound my life to a job. Instead of discovering a way of life, I was focused on choosing a job for life. Which is very sensible indeed. It is rather logical to have a job and a stunning career to be able to fulfill all of my tiny dreams and not so small desires. I have felt the pressure to choose the career asap, I have not felt the pressure to ensure that the career is satisfying. 

Gallup released a report stating heartbreaking numbers: 87% of 200k+ employees from all around the world are not engaged in their work (the level of disengagement differs from sleepwalking through their days to actively hating their jobs). That leaves only 13% of people working with passion. Knowing that an average person spends the majority of his or her life at work, the numbers scare me - I do not want to sleepwalk through my life with little bit of passion hiding behind my desk. 

What matters to me is individual happiness that leads to holistic contentedness. That is why I am here to ask individuals about their attitudes towards their dream work atmosphere and describe my discoveries about it.