The search for happiness
The search for happiness in one’s career only really became an issue in the early 2000s.
Before the oil crisis, Germany was experiencing a growth boom. Advancement opportunities and salary were the most important factors in job searches.
In the early 80s, terms like self-actualization first became fashionable. However, this idea was also associated with men who knit quickly.
But even the yuppies of the 80s mostly got the money for their designer clothes from their parents.
The oil crisis was the starting point of structural unemployment.
Reunification initially plunged many people into unemployment and insignificance.
In the GDR, free choice of job was only possible to a very limited extent.
Generation "Y"
It wasn't until 2005 that the pursuit of professional fulfillment really became a topic. The term "agility" became fashionable, and suddenly Generation Y (Why) entered the market.
Only 10% of this generation consider their career to be the most important thing in life. Almost 70% consider their private life more important than their professional life.
But what is a successful and fulfilling life?
There are various approaches to happiness research, but they differ quite significantly from the conventional notion of happiness and satisfaction. While advertising promises us happiness through consumption, sociological studies reveal entirely different relationships.
Money makes you happy...or does it?
Money makes you happy, that's true, but only up to a certain salary bracket.
However, only a few people in Germany reach a salary bracket where more money no longer results in an increase in individual happiness.
Married men are happier than single men. For women, however, there's no difference. It's not yet entirely clear whether being married is the cause of happiness for men, or whether happy men simply find a wife more easily.
Surveys show that people in the north are happier than in the rest of Germany.
In short, there are a lot of sociological studies that suggest something about happiness, but no method of measuring happiness has yet been found that could confirm the survey results.
Finally, we don't know whether married men simply lie when asked to assess their individual happiness levels.
Individual maturation process
By the way, job dissatisfaction is often also a sign of a person's individual maturation process. Why am I here on this earth...and do I really want to do what I'm currently doing professionally for the rest of my life?
What is happiness in a job? For many, it's being part of a team, doing meaningful work, and having a varied job that's neither too demanding nor too demanding.
New Agers say that happiness lies in self-realization, Buddhists say that the pursuit of happiness is the cause of all unhappiness, and biologists say it's all nonsense, that happiness is a genetic predisposition.
And so it happens that many do not know what they want, but are sure that they do not have it.
Lack and abundance
One of the most painful feelings in life is lack.
Most people will agree if you say, for example, that money or love is in short supply.
Lack is, first and foremost, a judgment. Some would say it's a feeling of "being in a state of lack."
Feelings, in turn, are relative. Or to put it another way: feelings are a consequence of inner values or what we consider good or bad.
Abundance is therefore also an evaluation dependent on our inner standpoints.
position- Change
However, many people consider scarcity or abundance to be absolute values. They believe that if there were enough of this or that, people would be fulfilled.
However, studies with lottery winners, for example, show that the feeling of abundance and fulfillment only lasts for a short time before the feeling of lack takes over again.
In this sense, lack is a standpoint or perspective that one can adopt. Fulfillment is the same.
In contextual coaching, we examine these viewpoints and see which values work for a fulfilling life.