How to Find a Balance Between Job Satisfaction and Job Security

These are two career paths with different motivating factors.

My first full-time job did not turn up good. There were multiple reasons why I left, and many of the reasons I still see when discussing with my friends about their job status. The same reasons why they want to quit their job but are not sure if they should do it. Why is that?

Job security. Yes. That’s what our parents want for us. That is how we grew up in our society. To be stable, happy and financially secure since we start our job.

But here is a thought: do job satisfaction, and job security go hand in hand? They usually don’t because they represent two different kinds of career, and some people may fall in the spectrum between these two: Passion-driven and Money-driven.

Passion-driven

The is the path where you do what you want to do, what you are good at doing. In this path, money is never a priority. Happiness, peace and satisfaction are. Money is just a result of our efforts that gradually stock with time, depending on our commitment and consistency.

You do this work because you are passionate, and you see yourself changing other people’s lives with your work. You might be motivating many people to follow this career path too. You just don’t know it yet. You have that aura while following this.

I have seen some of my friends quit their job. Not because of me, probably. But yes, they are motivated when I talk about my career path and how I am living the passion oriented career they wish they could too.

Security builds with time in this case.

When practising this ideology, satisfaction is the first thing you get, and security is a long term goal for you that builds with time.

I learned the importance of frugality when I quit my full-time job. It is the same way you realise the importance of a resource when it is gone.

Are my finances still stable? Yes. I am learning how to spend wisely.

I don’t want to live on the edge with my finances at the end of every month. That involves everything from getting what you need to purchasing everything that you eventually won’t use for the purpose you bought in the first place. Yes, the closet floods with things like that.

Money-driven

When you are money-driven, it is where you can do any amount of labour to get the financial security you want. You know you will have the stability. You worked hard for it. But are you doing what you want to do? What do you like to do? What you do without thinking about it as work?

If you see clock time near the end of office hours, then probably the answer is “No” for the questions mentioned above. It is because money-driven career can become materialistic in the long run if there is even the slightest compromise on job satisfaction.

Settlements will be there for sure. If an organisation is giving you the desired paycheck to do the work, then you are using your brain for their work, their growth and their profits.

Switching jobs, getting promoted, getting a raise: they all will get you what money can eventually buy. But is it worth it? Is it worth the toll they put on your physical and mental health?

Some Sunday you plan that Monday will kick start right and you will rule the week. But you can never predict what problems will arise, whether they will be in your control or not. Then comes Monday and it exhausts you so much that the thought of “carpe diem” is the first thing you flush after reaching home.

I love Monday. It is the best day to plan the week and roll happily throughout. I will share my methods on how I made Monday as the most productive day of my week in a future post.

The balance is subjective.

You will seize the day when you live life on your terms. I just reframed “carpe diem” in the previous sentence in my own words.

Financial security is not a short term goal. It requires patience and grit. And if you think that a full-time job can give you financial security, then it will only be worth it if you have job satisfaction too.

Think about what path will you follow in the long run, the one that requires intense labour or the one that brings peace along with that?

Taking responsibility is daring; being workaholic is incredible. But it should not come at the cost of putting so much pressure on your mind that work gets your attention all the time. Come on; work is a part of your life. It is not everything.

Embracing the passion oriented path requires unconventional and challenging decisions.

Few days before I quit my full-time, I got another opportunity on the top of already freelance work I was doing with Udacity. In Feb 2019, I was on-boarded as a mentor at Udacity.

I did not expect I would have so many students to guide. But when I eventually got somewhere around 30 students to help because I invested two years in online learning, I realised they wanted me to give back to the community that has changed my entire perspective of career goals.

One thing that Udacity has taught me is the concept of lifelong learning and that I am never going to be sitting in a chair all day long waiting for the 5 PM ding-dong. Hey, that rhymes! I did not intend it, though!

In the second half of December 2019, I got the role of project reviewer too. It is the “another opportunity” I mentioned a few seconds ago. My financial security improved even more. I am writing on Medium now, and one day this will convert too, I have a long-term roadmap for this. All these steps are experiments that are showing excellent results and are confidence boosters.

Do the time

Now I am so involved in my freelance work that even in quarantine period, my work schedule has not shaken at all. I still sleep at the same time every day, wake up at the same time every day and follow my daily schedule like it is not affected.

The only few changes this 21-day total lockdown in India has had on me are the following:

• For the health of everyone, I follow social distancing strictly.
• For my health, I maintain my immunity by eating healthy foods, doing exercise, sleeping at the right time and following all the best hygiene practices suggested by WHO.

That is the entire sphere in reality. If I imagine myself at the centre and the world is revolving around me, following the first step will protect everyone and the second step is for my well-being.

Now that I have realised all my income sources are type I career: the passion oriented, I don’t even have to think about financial security. It is building with time and becoming stronger.

Convince my dad is difficult because he wants me to be financially secure right away. That is how he sees the job market. It is impossible to change a perspective which has developed in so many years. More than ten years, I mean. How do you fight that?

I did my part in convincing him, and he is not worried at all. That’s what he says right now. I said, “If even convincing words mean nothing to you, then let it be that way for us. Time will tell you that I was right in following the passion oriented career”.

Because passion-driven career is not only the career, I am pursuing; it is my life I am living without any restriction. The third thing that comes above job security and job satisfaction is the one at my highest priority: financial freedom, that I will get by expanding my income streams by exploring more artistic talent. Art has a way of setting you free.

Currently, it is writing, but I am practising photography too. It is from the feedback I have received from friends and family.

Who knows what art I will discover in future and what heights I will reach.

One thing I know for sure is that I will compromise my stability in the short term, but that is okay, I want some adventure and earn the stability and security the way there are worth holding on forever.

This article belongs to a series of articles I am publishing in this 21-day streak. See the first one here. This one is the twelfth one — nine more to go.

To read the remaining ones, navigate to the end of the first article where there is a reference list sorted by day number.

~ Sanjeev