Your career should fit your life, not become your life

You don't have to love your job so much that you'd do it for free. In fact, please don't tell your employer that.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

In my early twenties, I worked 60-hour weeks.

I learned something very important from that experience: I never wanted to work 60-hour weeks again.

I didn't come out of it inspired by hustle culture or determined to climb higher, earn more impressive titles, or find work I loved so much that I'd happily keep doing it late into the night. No. I came out of it with a decision that I wanted work to have boundaries.

That lesson has stayed with me.

Today, I work full-time as an instructional designer, and I genuinely like what I do. I get to solve problems, create things, learn, and use skills I'm good at. My work matters to me.

But it isn't my whole life.

I also run Intendify Your Life, where I use my background as a certified life coach to help women take a more intentional approach to their lives. I design virtual clothing for avatars because it gives me a completely different kind of creative outlet. I spend time with my family. I work on my home. I have interests that have absolutely nothing to do with either of my jobs.

I don't need one career to provide every source of meaning, creativity, connection, accomplishment, and purpose in my life.

And neither do you.

Your job doesn't have to be your passion

We've been given some strange messages about work.

For generations, work was often treated primarily as a way to support yourself and your family. Then the conversation swung in another direction, and we started hearing that we should find our passion, do what we love, build a dream career, and never settle.

There's nothing wrong with wanting work you love. Some people find tremendous meaning in their careers and genuinely feel that their work is part of their purpose. But that's not the only way to have a successful career. Maybe you want work that's interesting and challenging. Maybe you want to keep moving up and taking on bigger responsibilities. Maybe you want to build a business and see how far you can take it.

Or maybe you want a stable job with decent pay, good benefits, people you don't mind spending your day with, and a schedule that lets you leave work behind when you're finished.

That's allowed too.

A job doesn't have to fulfill you completely to be a good job.

Decide what you actually need from work

The problem with chasing someone else's definition of career success is that you can end up getting exactly what you thought you wanted and discovering it doesn't fit your life at all.

A promotion might come with more money and a better title, but also longer hours and more responsibility. If what you really wanted was more time with your family, that's not necessarily progress.

Starting a business might give you autonomy and creative freedom, but it may also bring uncertainty and require far more of your time, at least for a while. That's a reasonable trade if entrepreneurship matters to you. It's a terrible trade if what you were actually craving was stability.

Before deciding what you want to do next in your career, it helps to ask what you need your work to give you.

Maybe it's money, flexibility, stability, challenge, autonomy, good benefits, creative expression, meaningful work, predictable hours, opportunities to learn, or room to advance.

And your answer doesn't have to stay the same forever.

The career that fit your life at 25 might not fit at 45. A job you loved before having children may become impossible once you're juggling daycare schedules. A career you chose for stability might start feeling restrictive once you're financially secure enough to take more risks.

Changing what you want from work doesn't mean you've lost your ambition. Sometimes your definition of success simply changes.

Your career can't meet every need in your life

“Your career is part of your life. It isn’t required to be the whole thing.”

This is where I think we sometimes ask too much of work.

We want our jobs to pay us well, challenge us intellectually, provide meaningful relationships, give us purpose, allow us to be creative, make us feel accomplished, reflect our values, offer security, and somehow still leave us energized at 5:00.

That's quite a job description.

If you're dissatisfied with work, it's worth figuring out whether the problem actually belongs to your career before you decide you need a new one. Maybe you keep thinking, My job isn't creative enough. That might be true. Perhaps creativity is important enough to you that you need work where you can use it every day.

Or maybe you need to paint.

My virtual clothing design doesn't need to become my career to matter. I don't need to monetize it, build a business around it, or turn it into another professional goal. I can create clothing because I enjoy creating clothing.

The same applies to other parts of your life. Your closest friendships don't necessarily need to come from work. Your job doesn't have to provide your entire sense of purpose. You can challenge your brain by learning something that has absolutely nothing to do with professional development.

Sometimes career dissatisfaction really is career dissatisfaction. Other times, work is getting blamed because something else in your life is missing. It's worth knowing which one you're dealing with before you hand in your notice.

A career that fits your life still needs boundaries

Anyone else suspect she practiced that expression in the mirror?

Even work you enjoy can take too much from you if you let it. I learned that lesson from those 60-hour weeks, and I've carried it with me ever since. There will always be more work you could do. Another email. Another task. Another project you could get ahead on. At some point, you have to decide that you're finished for the day.

Boundaries aren't only necessary when you hate your job. They're also what allows a job you like to remain one part of a much larger life. That might mean deciding when your workday ends and actually ending it. It might mean not checking email at night. It might mean declining responsibilities you don't have capacity for or questioning whether every opportunity to advance is an opportunity you actually want.

You can care about your career without giving it unlimited access to you.

Wanting less from your career isn't the same as settling

There's an important distinction here. I'm not suggesting you should stay in work that makes you miserable because you're supposed to find fulfillment elsewhere. If your workplace is unhealthy, your workload is unsustainable, you're being treated badly, your pay isn't meeting your needs, or your work no longer fits the life you want, those things matter.

Taking charge of your career can absolutely mean leaving a job that isn’t working for you. It can also mean pursuing a promotion, learning a new skill, changing fields, starting a business, negotiating different working arrangements, or finally going after something you've wanted for years.

But it can also mean looking at your perfectly decent job and deciding you don't need anything more from it right now. You don't have to keep climbing simply because there's another rung on the ladder.

Success might mean moving up, but it might also mean reaching a place where work gives you what you need and deciding to invest more of your energy somewhere else.

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Read: Master these 12 life areas for intentional living

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Before you go...

Ask yourself one question: What do I need my work to give me right now?

Don't answer with a job title.

Think about the life around the job. Do you need more money? More flexibility? More challenge? Better boundaries? Greater stability? More autonomy? Work that feels meaningful? A shorter commute? Or simply work you can happily leave behind at the end of the day?

Then look at the career you have now. Maybe there's a gap you need to start closing. Maybe your priorities have changed, and your work needs to change with them.

Or maybe you'll realize your job is already doing exactly what you need it to do.

Michelle Arseneault is a certified life coach and instructional designer who loves helping women understand why life feels harder than it needs to, and what to do about it.

“I believe small, thoughtful changes usually have a bigger impact than dramatic overhauls. Around here, you'll usually find me exploring the psychology behind everyday life, creating practical tools, or asking questions that help you see things from a new angle.”

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