There are lots of reasons why you might like your job – you’re treated well, you enjoy your coworkers, the pay is good, etc. But truly loving what you do for a living usually requires a deeper connection with the work itself. Sometimes that connection is based on your unique life experience, but often it relates to your personality type. If a job lacks certain elements that align with your trait-based needs and preferences, it may not ever truly satisfy you on a deep level.
But hold on – let’s not let idealized visions wreck a perfectly good thing. In truth, if you’ve got a decent-paying job in a positive environment, you’re doing great! You don’t necessarily need your work to be a source of deep soul satisfaction – there’s room elsewhere in life for that, right? Sometimes work is more about being pragmatic.
On the other hand, you’re an Advocate (INFJ) personality type, and visualizing the ideal is like breathing for you. You can act pragmatically when you must, but you can’t stop your mind from seeking grandness – or from being nagged by a sense of emptiness when things aren’t good enough. Understanding what can really fulfill you in your work life is a double-edged sword – but a valuable one. Yes, it might give rise to some dissatisfaction, but without having an ideal to strive for, how far will you progress?
So, without losing sight of practical realities or devaluing your past or current work, let’s consider what’s likely to be essential for an Advocate to be truly happy in their work.
Critical Elements for Work Happiness
To uncover what can truly make you happy, it’s important to understand the mechanics of your personality. As an Advocate, you strive to have a sense of purpose. Your Judging trait indicates a value for structure, completion, and certainty. You share with other Judging personalities an inner desire to shape circumstances, achieve specific goals, and see things done properly – yet all personality types are unique, and so is your way of working.
For one thing, it’s constantly fueled by imagination – and not always in the form of useful practicality. You can set about a clearly defined, basic task with focus, and before long, your mind will be branching off into countless inspired what-ifs, from how things might turn out to creative ideas for how to accomplish them. You’re not content to accept things for their mundane surface – instead, you’re always searching out deeper dimensions of possibility.
Advocate personalities also tend to be sensitive to emotion. In fact, the emotional overtones of your work can be a significant influence on your motivation, ability, and focus. You probably blaze in a positive, supportive work environment and feel attacked by a negative, disrespectful one. And your relationships with people have a powerful influence – work-related bonds are a source of strength because they create positive emotions that give you energy and bring out your best side.
One aspect of that best side is your compassionate altruism. Everyone has a healthy inner desire for self-benefit, and it’s often good to prioritize what’s best for you. Yet, as an Advocate, you like seeing the best in people – and rewarding it. Sure, you’re as capable of anger and judgment as any personality type (maybe more than some when it comes to judgment), but nothing makes you happier than being kind and generous when it’s deserved.
So to sum up the above points, you like to achieve specific outcomes, are driven to seek deeper meaning in everything, derive joy and energy from positive relationships, and feel an intense reward from helping worthy people. In other words, your work probably won’t be truly fulfilling for you unless you can create positive connections and do some good. But what does that look like in real life, at work?
Getting What You Need at Work
You can start by recognizing that the kind of positive connections that will truly satisfy you in your work can take many forms and come from different sources. They could come from the nature of your work itself – for example, a business where the main activity has a direct, positive impact on people. Things like teaching, health care, or even more technical services like cleaning, household maintenance, or auto repair are examples of helping others in essential ways.
Feeling like you’re serving an important, positive purpose in people’s lives can provide a deep sense of reward in your work. And it doesn’t always have to be stereotypically laudable work like fighting fires either – sometimes the greatest hero in someone’s day is a plumber who’ll cheerfully come out on a Saturday night. That beloved, heroic plumber could be you, dear Advocate.
You can also create that needed feeling of positive, impactful purpose in the way that you do your work, even if it isn’t as much about delivering an essential benefit. The things that people value aren’t necessarily what they need, but it can still feel deeply fulfilling to provide them. For example, dining out may technically be a luxury, but food is a way to touch people and bring them joy. Maybe you sling the tastiest street tacos out of a tiny stand, your soul feasting on the reactions that you get from people loving your food.
Even industries that might make many people groan still allow you to find ways to connect with others and do some good. A lot of that depends on how generous you can afford to be with your time and energy. Even when you’re in the bowels of a mundane industry, you can still let your Advocate-ness shine through. Often, that just means giving people sincere respect and attention and making sure that they understand that at least one person – you – thinks that they and their needs matter.
When you make someone feel heard and valued, it can have a surprisingly powerful impact, and all the more so when it comes from an unexpected source. Maybe you’re a corporate manager who cares more about people’s well-being than the bottom line (you rebel, you!) or a helpful customer service worker who always does their best to fix people’s problems. Options abound for how you can seek to imbue your work with deeper meaning that satisfies your soul.
Conclusion: Creative Structure
If the above sounds trite, it might be a sign that you need to explore ways to connect with a positive purpose in your work. It’s all too easy to become cynical about the modern working world (because it sometimes has outrageous aspects) or to find that very real pressures and concerns take center stage (like job security and income). But deep down, you were meant for more than that. Your mind is full of hopes and dreams, and your heart wants to fulfill some deeper purpose.
Why not try to marry the necessities of real life with your desire for something grander? You don’t necessarily need to switch career tracks to find a deeply fulfilling sense of reward in your work – sometimes that sense of meaning starts with a self-created construct or belief. As an Advocate personality type, following your ideals is deeply satisfying, and with a little imagination, you may find ways to do so where you are, doing what you already do.