There are many ideas and articles on why Career Fulfillment matters but what does it really mean?  Career Fulfillment means different things for different people when it comes to their “jobs”.  As pointed out in this well thought out Forbes Article, your job is not just where you spend most of your time.  It is also what defines us and how we financially and emotionally provide for ourselves and our families in Salary and feeling better about self which translates into better relationships with both family and friends.  Whatever that career fulfillment is – we know it’s important.

There is much made of finding a “greater purpose” or “passion” to pursue.  While that may be the great story you hear about entrepreneur who quit his or her job to pursue something greater in order to find that fulfillment it isn’t necessarily the only path.  Many times engagement at work and thus fulfillment declines as a result of monotony and not learning and from lack of opportunity – things get stale.  It also comes from not knowing what role your work plays in the larger picture, over politicking from peers and bosses, and worse still from expectations for work not being set where you start to question what your job really is.

As the day to day takes hold it’s easy to forget to gauge where we are, how were feeling, and what we want out of our careers.  With that it’s important to ask ourselves questions to monitor our level of career fulfillment before things devolve into showing up to just get a paycheck so you can pay bills and have enough to live.  It should be and has to be more than that to some degree.

So what is Career Fulfillment…There are some important questions to ask ourselves:

1. Do you feel invested in that big picture of the company you work for or the project you’re working on – is it something you believe in or care about?

2. Do you understand where your work and your role fit into the bigger picture for the company or project?

3. Do you feel you and your work matter as part of that bigger picture or initiative?

4. Do you get to see and understand the results of your work as it pertains to what is trying to be accomplished – Or are you busting out status reports day in, day out never knowing if anything was done with them?

5. Do you like your reports, coworkers and/or managers – Are they invested in their work or simply just “showing up” – How is that affecting you and your engagement?

6. Is there too much politicking happening where people want to “look good” rather than “do good” – What does that mean for how you approach your work? Are you spending more time mitigating the effects of that than actually finding meaning in your work?

7. Most importantly, at the end of the day, do you feel like your time at work was well spent – With that, are you looking forward to or at least not dreading going back the next day?

With answering those questions, you can quickly determine if it’s time for you to find something more within your current company, somewhere else, or something entirely different like an entrepreneurial path.  More than anything, the awareness of where you are, how you feel, and what you want is needed before making that next leap. Otherwise it can become a case of wanting something, anything else leading to jumping from job to job before you’ve ever stopped to think about what it is that defines fulfillment to you.  Stop and ponder so that next step in your career, whatever it might be, is more impactful in getting where you want to be and being more fulfilled.