Once you understand the three circles of career satisfaction, it’s time to start coming up with your circles. The first exercise I ask clients to do begins to fill in the “Things I enjoy” circle.

I love the materials from Marcus Buckingham, author of several books on finding and using your strengths. One of my favorite “go to” resources that I recommend to clients is his book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work (Amazon affiliate link to support this site). If you want to find the intersection of your first two circles of career satisfaction, look no further than his Love It or Loathe It exercise.

First, get a pile of index cards, a blue pen and a red pen and take them to work on Monday.

That’s right, cheap index cards and two pens are all the investment you need to make for this exercise. Easy peasy.

Now, use them this week to jot down what you are doing when you have either of these feelings at work:

I love this!

When you are doing an activity you love (or have just finished one), jot down what you were doing in blue pen on one of the index cards. Maybe you were so involved in doing that research that lunchtime flew right and now it’s 2pm and you’re starving. Maybe you left that meeting today feeling like a rock star (“Yes! I nailed that! I rock”). Maybe you leave the building after a long day feeling more energized than when you came in. Any of those types of feelings – lost in your work, triumphant, bursting with energy – are worthy of being on a card with blue ink.

Try to be specific. Write down “Researched market interest in reading social media on mobile devices.” Or “Persuaded customer x to go with our solution for problem y.” Or “Analyzed data and finished the day with a solution to x problem.”

I loathe this!

When you are doing an activity you loathe, make note of that in red pen on an index card. What’s the thing that’s hanging over your head that you know you need to do but can’t seem to find the time to work on? What activity do you finish and say, “Phew, that’s over. Good riddance!” What are you doing when time goes at a crawl and your checking your watch every 2 minutes, frustrated that the damn clock isn’t moving?

Again, be specific to the activity when you’re writing it out. “Writing status report on xyz project.” Or “Giving sales presentation to a group of 5 new customers.” Or “Develop project plan for abc effort.”

At the end of the week when you have your Love it and Loathe it activities, do the “Love it” part of the exercise. Take the cards in blue pen – your “loved it” cards – and pick your top 5.

Now, answer a few simple questions about your “loved it” activities.

• What were you actually doing? (presenting, researching, analyzing)
• How were you doing it? (in front of a group of 20, at a computer when my cube mates were away, at my home office)
• Did it matter why you were doing it or who you were doing it with/to/for? (with brand new customers, to solve x problem, at home in peace)

What did you find? What energizes you?

Great things often come in threes. The famous three points of terrific speeches. Fabulous movies trilogies like Lord of the Rings. Famous photographs use the rule of thirds.

Satisfying careers are also built on three platforms.

Think of them like a Venn diagram, with circles that overlap at one convergent point. That point is what I call career fit, and it’s foundational to building a career that has you waking up energized in the morning as you head to work.

The first circle is filled with answers to the question: “What can you do well?”

As in, what are your abilities? Your skills? Your knowledge areas? (There we go with that pesky rule of threes again) What are the things that you CAN do, even if you don’t enjoy them? Can you organize, but it’s not something you’d want to do all day every day? Can you balance the budget, but hate every minute spent in your home office? Can you speak in front of groups, but throw up every time you have to because you’re scared to death?

Of course, there are some things you can do that you like. Which brings us to the second circle.

The second circle is filled with answers to the question: “What do you enjoy doing?”

What are you doing when time rushes by and your growling stomach alerts you to the fact that you haven’t eaten lunch and it’s 2pm already? What are you doing when you feel completely in “the zone”, that feeling defined by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi as flow? What do you love to do so much that you leap at the chance to do it, no matter when or why or with whom?

Where those two circles overlap is part of the key to career satisfaction – you are doing things you enjoy and that you do well. But there’s one more ingredient.

The third circle is filled with the answers to the question: “What do I enjoy and do well that will provide value, and to whom?”

Of course, there are many answers to that question that do not even come close to the overlap of the first two circles. Being a doctor provides lots of value, but if you faint at the sight of gore that’s not going to work for you. Actors and actresses provide entertainment that is of value, but if you don’t look good on screen or aren’t able to warm the hearts of America that’s not going to work for you either.

You want to do work you love in an area where you have talent and skill, and apply it to provide value so you can get paid.

That’s it. It’s a simple enough concept, but difficult to execute on. That’s what we’ll talk about in a future post.

For now, work on thinking about when time stands still for you and you are in the zone. Are you doing any of that in your job? Conversely, is there anything you do in your job – maybe for just a little bit of the week – where you shine? Those are the activities to write down on an index card and post above your computer or on your cube wall where you will be reminded to make them a priority.

Where do your circles meet?

This morning I was working with Steve* to overcome his sense of increasing burn out. Steve, like so many of us, is expected to “do more with less” every day – and on a reduced budget with reduced staff, to boot. He loves his work and believes in his company, but feels like every day is a Sisyphean task of working hard to knock one thing off his “to do” list only to have two or three added in its place. The worst part is getting distracted by the two or three incoming tasks and not even completing the one.

We addressed several common coaching topics – how to set boundaries and expectations with his manager, how to deal with shifting priorities, how to reduce his own sense of guilt for not achieving everything expected of him during the work week (which weighed heavily on him even in his off hours) – but there was one simple tip that he could implement immediately to provide relief.

Completely close Outlook for one hour, each day

Most professional workers live and die by Outlook. Emails pop in every few minutes with urgent and immediate fires that we have to put out right now – or at least it feels that way. Sometimes the need truly is urgent. Sometimes it’s just a distraction from the task we don’t really want to do. Either way, we get sidetracked. Before you know it, you’ve been building that darn slide deck for your presentation for four hours and you have little to show for it. Meanwhile, you’ve acted on 5 requests, responded to three questions, and accepted two invitations to meetings where the actual need for your input is questionable.

Stop the madness by blocking 75% of those interruptions before they even start.

Your boss knows where your office is and how to knock on a door. Your co-workers know how to use a phone. Your direct reports know how to slip a note under said door.

The world will not end if someone can’t reach you this minute.

This is a true statement 99.99% of the time. And yes, that’s an arbitrary use of statistics just to make a point (hey, politicians aren’t the only people who can use that technique).

Choose one thing to work on that hour. Maybe it’s a document. Maybe it’s thinking through a challenging situation. Maybe it’s pulling back and thinking strategically about where your work adds value to the company and what you might stop, start and continue doing to add more.

Any of those things is probably more important than responding instantly to someone’s oddball request or incidental question.

What could produce in an hour without interruptions?

What eats away your time and energy during the day? How do you handle it? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

* Names and situations are composite portrayals of the clients I help. This allows me to retain confidentiality while sharing real-world solution ideas with others.