4 ways to take control of your career

During the last year, there have been a lot of changes at work. Everyone had to adjust to working from home but maybe your job content suddenly took a different turn. You might have liked that twist because you could discover new talents or gain new knowledge, maybe it involved collaboration with new colleagues or it was a project that showed you the bigger picture of your organization. But chances are just as good that the change in your job duties just limited you more and that you suddenly found yourself having to do things that you find don't give you as much energy or even cost you energy.

Taking a critical look at your tasks and reflecting on what gives or takes your energy should be a regular exercise. This will give you more and especially faster clarity on how well your job or career suits you. This again ensures that you can intervene more quickly and start discussions to adjust things in your work environment. Small adjustments to your job are called jobcrafting.

Jobcrafting involves tinkering with your current job so that it better suits your personal needs, strengths, interests and abilities. This increases your motivation, engagement and job happiness. You change jobs without changing jobs.

Sounds fun, but in what ways can you jobcraft?

Task crafting

In taskcrafting, you change the number, type or nature of tasks. So, for example, you add tasks that are not strictly speaking in your job description, but that give you more satisfaction in your job.

See what tasks you can take on extra, for example, or which ones you can pass on, automate or put into a rotation.

Relationship crafting

You change something about how you work with others. That could be working with other people or tinkering with the intensity of your relationships at work. This will give you a better view of what colleagues do and what challenges they face, and in doing so, you can also make your own work better and contribute to good collaboration.

Consciously collaborating on a project with all colleagues you don't know (yet) will broaden your network and also give you more insights into the company.

Cognitive crafting

By changing your own thinking about your work, you give more meaning to your work. You see it more broadly than the task alone and see what you can contribute to the bigger picture of your organization.

Zoom out from your concrete task and see what happens when your task is performed with excellence. What effect does this have for the company, the colleagues, the customer? Your work really matters!

Contextual crafting

In contextual crafting, you modify your work environment so that you can perform your task optimally. Consider changing your physical environment (e.g., your desk) or tools that allow you to feel better (e.g., focus work with headphones).

Small adjustments often make a big difference. If you want to stay in control of your own career, talk to colleagues, HR or a confidant about the concrete possibilities in your situation.

Would you like to know how you can apply this concretely in your work environment? Then be sure to request a free telephone consultation with one of our Travvant by Travvant career coaches.