12 Ways to be Thankful for Your Career

November is National Gratitude Month. And, there’s a lot to be thankful for in our every day lives.

When we think of the things we are grateful for we automatically think of our personal lives—family, friends, and experiences. But what about our professional lives? We should also consider what we’re thankful for at work. We spend approximately 2,080 hours at work yearly. Surely, there’s got to be something to be grateful for during our careers.

Take time to reflect on past experiences, the good and the bad, to gain an understanding of how they attributed to your professional knowledge, socially, culturally, and personally. Remember, the art of reflection is to look back on a situation, ponder over it, learn from it, and use the knowledge to help contribute to your professional development.

Here are some things you may have reflected on and appreciated throughout your career.

Contributions

Professional contributions that are channeled through your ideas, efforts, attitude, participation, and through the undertaking of tasks contributes the overall success of the company. These activities are influential to your workplace and affect those around you.

Value You Derive

Hard work pays off with compensation. Money and benefits are valuable; however, rewards can take many other forms through financial, emotional, or professional opportunities. Work value is derived from ideas, personal growth, and assurance that your skills are needed, valid, and useful.

Problems You Can Fix

When you think about it, jobs actually exist because there are problems to be solved. During the years, you may have had the ability to solve problems and think out the box, fostering a more efficient method of fulfilling your job duties while saving your employer money.

Great Mentors

You may have been blessed to develop a relationship with someone who you consider a mentor.  A good mentor accepts the mentee where they are in their professional development. They a have willingness to share skills, knowledge, and expertise. A mentor or coach who has experienced similar challenges can help you avoid making huge mistakes throughout your professional journey.

The Opportunity to Surround Yourself with People Better Than You

The people we choose to surround ourselves with impact the way we think, act, and feel on a day-to-day basis. From mentors to advisors to employees, you may feel grateful for their competence, honesty, positive attitude, and loyalty.

Skills That You’ve Acquired

Lessons learned and skills acquired throughout your career become habitual and transferable in both your professional and personal life. For instance, sales are the basis of all business success. You are always selling, even if your role does not include sales in the job description. You sell during marketing activities, team meetings, customer service, product management, conferences, business development, engineering, user experience, and more.

Time

During gaps in employment you have time to focus completely on yourself.  You can use this time to network, refresh, and refocus. Take advantage of this time by improving your skills and making yourself more valuable to your future employer. Don’t devalue anything you do during a gap in unemployment—use all of your experiences to demonstrate personal and professional growth.

Growth

You’ve persevered through the years and might find that you are grateful for the time you spent searching for solutions for all the adversities that led you to where you are now. The obstacles that you endured may have prepared you for success and now you may realize that you are a better and stronger person.

Experience

Throughout your career, you are likely to meet new people and build your professional network. Spend time building your online presence, write a blog, or perhaps travel abroad. All of these things build your skill set and give you more experiences to discuss during a job interview.

Serious job seekers put a lot of effort into finding the right opportunity, this means networking, volunteering, blogging, and picking up new skills.

As we approach this season of thanksgiving, we like to know what you are thankful for? Let us know in the comments section below.