Changing Yourself to Fit Your Career Won’t Bring Satisfaction

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Allison Kolberg (Curbow) was good at everything. The problem was…she couldn’t find something she enjoyed doing.

As a self-proclaimed Upholder (defined in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies), Allison had a knack, or rather a compulsion, for meeting expectations.

This habit led to a “see and conquer” mentality in the career world. She’d see a job posting, and whether or not she genuinely wanted to do the work, she’d take on the challenge. In other words, she’d shift into whatever shape necessary to accomplish the goals of that role.

While pursuing her degree, Allison worked as an office manager in a typical 8-hour office environment. Not too long into her role, she realized the clock-in-clock-out-pushing-papers desk job wasn’t for her. Recognizing a need for hands-on work, Allison routed her college studies for a career in oil and gas.

Upon graduation, she was hired as a High-pressure Pump Operator in Anchorage, Alaska. Looking back, Allison says she was drawn to the job’s hands-on nature and the opportunity to work in big picture operations. She felt a special love for the procedures and problem-solving ability required for her two week on/two week off schedule. She was good at her job, but the love didn’t last.

Allison comes on the podcast today with Scott to tell her story of how she made her transition.

After she made the changes in her life to create her career change, she realized that it was more than a career change - it was a life change.

On today’s episode, she explains one of the struggles she had:

“I had so many different skills and interests, and I jumped around so much that one job sometimes didn't look anything like the next job. I was grasping at straws to try to fit all these aspects of my life into one [career] that I didn't even know was possible. So, I just jumped from job to job.

I felt like a flip-flopper. It didn't feel very good. When I would want to move on to the next thing, I felt like I had to subdue or discredit the parts of myself that were in the other position.”

By the time she got through her career transition, she was able to look back with better clarity:

“Looking back at the big picture, even though my jobs were so different, every single job, whether it was part of the role or not—if it was just interactions with employees or how I felt about myself in that position—everything pointed to my dream job.”