Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Optimizing your career for happiness

praachi.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#31

Post by refurb »

chrisdbanks wrote: post #2

I would also add to this. Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. When your values and objectives resonate with those of your employer, every project becomes more meaningful, and motivation naturally increases. Your personal goals become much easier to achieve, and you have more fun achieving the company goals beca…

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer

Maybe it's my own experience, but I've never worked for a company whose mission didn't funnel down to "make money".

They might play lip service to "changing the world", "make products customers love" or "engineering excellence", but they were all done for the purpose of making money and would often be dropped without discussion if it impacted the bottom line.

I could see how industry selection could align with personal value (e.g. weapons versus healthcare), or if a company invests a lot in technical skill (because they think it makes them more money) and provide you with an environment to gain skills you personally want to gain, but in the end it all comes down to money.

Not to be overly cynical, I'm just sharing my own experience.

My personal approach is to go in eyes wide open (it's all about money), figure out what I want to get out of the job, and take advantage when the two overlap. But the entire time knowing it's likely temporary and to be prepared to jump ship if things change.

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#32

Post by KolenCh »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #29
chrisdbanks wrote: post #2

I would also add to this. Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. When your values and objectives resonate with those of your employer, every project becomes more meaningful, and motivation naturally increases. Your personal goals become much easier to achieve, and you have more fun achieving the company goals beca…

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fairly dangerous way of doing thing in my experience. Unless it’s your company, you have very little say in what the company actually does. Generally speaking, I advocate keeping a sane distance between what you do for a living and the rest of your life. You are no…

Not an expert here, so I'll quote one from the highlights I have reading the following book:

“Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” “First, “you should do what you love” means finding work that “matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest intrinsic motivations.” Intrinsic motivation means liking the substance of the work for its own sake. The second part, “you should love what you do,” means “finding a work environment that will allow you to retain that intrinsic motivational focus, while supporting your exploration of new ideas.”

Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#33

Post by mcook08 »

> Studies indicate that hospitals led by doctors, sports teams by star players, and universities by researchers outperform those led by non-experts

This is a bold point with only a vague reference to studies. I’m more familiar with sports teams than the other domains but star players who manage successful teams is an exception, not a rule. A few famous examples are Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter - both were legends playing their sports and have yet to participate in building successful teams at the management level.

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#34

Post by foobarchu »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #29
chrisdbanks wrote: post #2

I would also add to this. Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. When your values and objectives resonate with those of your employer, every project becomes more meaningful, and motivation naturally increases. Your personal goals become much easier to achieve, and you have more fun achieving the company goals beca…

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fairly dangerous way of doing thing in my experience. Unless it’s your company, you have very little say in what the company actually does. Generally speaking, I advocate keeping a sane distance between what you do for a living and the rest of your life. You are no…

My interpretation of this was that it's really nice to believe in the companies mission, and even nicer if your own goals happen to match it. This probably isn't possible at most generic "tech" companies, but for a lot of more domain-specific company it totally is without making your a stooge.

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#36

Post by sgarland »

RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #29
chrisdbanks wrote: post #2

I would also add to this. Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. When your values and objectives resonate with those of your employer, every project becomes more meaningful, and motivation naturally increases. Your personal goals become much easier to achieve, and you have more fun achieving the company goals beca…

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fairly dangerous way of doing thing in my experience. Unless it’s your company, you have very little say in what the company actually does. Generally speaking, I advocate keeping a sane distance between what you do for a living and the rest of your life. You are no…

> You are not defined by the company that pays you. Find a job which helps you achieve what you want to achieve, work honestly and leave work at work.

I am genuinely _fascinated_ with RDBMS. I tinker with them in my free time. I watch syscalls during reads and writes to better understand what’s happening. I test theories when someone asserts “Postgres is better at X than MySQL” to see if they’re correct.

The fact that I get paid quite well to run DBs is an absolute dream.

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#37

Post by jimbokun »

KolenCh wrote: post #32
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aligning your personal goals with your company's mission can be a game-changer in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment. That’s a fairly dangerous way of doing thing in my experience. Unless it’s your company, you have very little say in what the company actually does. Generally speaking, I advocate keeping a sane distance between what you do for a living and the rest of your life. You are no…

Not an expert here, so I'll quote one from the highlights I have reading the following book: “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” “First, “you should do what you love” means finding work that “matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest…

I suspect there are far too few jobs meeting that description relative to the number of people needing employment.

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#38

Post by abhas9 »

mcook08 wrote: post #33

> Studies indicate that hospitals led by doctors, sports teams by star players, and universities by researchers outperform those led by non-experts This is a bold point with only a vague reference to studies. I’m more familiar with sports teams than the other domains but star players who manage successful teams is an exception, not a rule. A few famous examples are Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter - both were legends p…

"Probably" this is the study being referred:

> Hospitals led by doctors outperform those run by non-medical managers. Universities, business schools and academic departments led by good scholars outperform those that are not. The best sports teams – using data from 15,000 basketball games and 60 years of Formula 1 racing – are led by great former players or run by racing specialists.

https://www.city.ac.uk/research/impact/case-studies/evidence...

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#39

Post by [deleted] »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #18
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder, as a misanthropic European software engineer, what would be the best way to get into the weapons or (governmental) surveillance industry?

It really depends on the level of seniority. If you are applying for a junior role, I don't know much about Europe, but in India the defence and security sector often have internship programmes for university students. Alternatively, same as all other jobs, keep your eye open and make sure your CV and cover letter is catered towards the job. You don't need to be a misanthrope to work in defence and security. Despite…

[deleted]

Re: Optimizing your career for happiness

#40

Post by KolenCh »

jimbokun wrote: post #37
KolenCh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an expert here, so I'll quote one from the highlights I have reading the following book: “Harsh as this sounds, if you’re not in the right job—a job that is moving you toward where you want to be in life—then you’re wasting almost all the time you’re spending at work.” “First, “you should do what you love” means finding work that “matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest…

I suspect there are far too few jobs meeting that description relative to the number of people needing employment.

Laura anticipated that response:

“Ferriss downplays the idea of dream jobs. As he writes, “For most people . . . the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.”

And then she further elaborate from there, discussing how to create the right job, bridging the gap between the ideal and the reality. Here's the 3 levels of changes to do that:

“... If the answer is “no” to any of these four questions, what can I change? In the next week? In the next year? Can I create the right job within my organization? Another organization? Or will I need to go out on my own?”

I know we're not in a book club, and I, even the author, does not have to ultimate answer. But as she argued, there are things we can have more meaningful/fulfilling life from our 168 hours a week and it is not as pessimistic as it seems. I invite you to give the book a chance.

Excerpt From 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think Laura Vanderkam

Post reply on HN