Get A Remote Job Faster By Knowing Your Fit

There are millions of companies. Apply to ones that fit you

Even a remote job, with all the associated freedom, is still a job. And it’s important that you feel motivated to do your job.

Why?

Remote work, especially in a WFA environment has very few external motivations attached to it. There’s no office to show up to, often no boss to check on you, and increasingly, fewer and fewer meetings to go to. So accountability has to come 100% from you.

How Do You Stay Motivated?

When it comes to work, people often have the wrong ideas around how to stay motivation.

The idea of “liking” ones’ job has always seemed silly. I like bean soup. I only eat bean soup about once every few months.

Being passionate about one’s job also seems silly. I’m passionate about taking care of the environment, but I do very little to express my passion.

And loving your job? Yikes! I love my fiancé, which means I’d do just about anything for her. Not going to do anything for my job, sorry.

You might be wondering, what’s left to associate with motivation for your job?

Feeling like your job serves a PURPOSE that you care about.

A Quick Note On Purpose

Purpose is funny thing because it’s surprisingly simple. Many people mix it up with passion or love. But it’s not at all. Purpose is all about fit between form and function.

Take a sticky note.

The purpose is pretty clear, right? You write something on the sticky note, and then put it somewhere that’s easy for you to see. It’s not very durable because you don’t need it to be there forever. You don’t write your budget on a sticky note, or your goal for a year. You write something you can do in a day or maximum a week that you need to remember.

Of course you could use a sticky note for other things… but not many. It’s pretty clear it has a single main purpose.

Compare a sticky note to a knife.

You can use a knife for many things, right? Most of them involve cutting, but not all. You can also use the bottom of a knife like a hammer, and a knife can be used to eat if you don’t have a fork or spoon.

Now take you. You, a human, are the most complex thing on the planet. You can use your body and mind for almost anything. Your “purpose” in a day will vary considerably depending on whether you are acting as a friend, a parent, or, among other things, doing your job.

And because you’re so flexible, you CAN do just about any work you want to, particularly when working remotely. Should you?

Absolutely not. So let’s talk about how you can find a job with a purpose that really fits you. Today I’ll describe the first step, and tomorrow and Friday I’ll walk you through steps 2 & 3.

Step 1: Look At Your Professional Past

This is pretty easy: you’ve been working and you’ve already gained some skills. What are they? Take 30-45 minutes and really think about what skills you’ve developed. Go beyond your current job.

For example, I was a teacher. Once I had to make tests on a regular basis. This gave me the skill of creating an assessment. Today I create assessments in the form of surveys on a regular basis as a product manager.

Once you have your skills down, consider your domains. What domains have you worked in?

Try to get very clear about what domains you’ve worked in. Recognize that a domain may be functional (e-commerce, SAAS) or subject-oriented (beauty, fitness).

Finally, list out company style of of your previous work. Were you working in an agency where you gave services to a client, or was your company based more software product people used? Was the relationship with your product or service continuous, or 1 time? Or perhaps your relationship with the client was sporadic, meaning they used the product only when they needed it.

For me, most of my work was continuous, product-related SAAS around advertising, and I used educational, leadership, and coordinating skills for the work. I could go deeper, but you get the point: from a professional history perspective, I can say my purpose is fairly clear.

Steps 2-3 Come Tomorrow

So I’m ending today’s letter here, in order to give you a chance to digest what I’ve read.

Take some time to list your skills, the domains you’ve worked in, and the company styles you are familiar with. Tomorrow we’ll look at other dimensions you can consider for your purpose.

Like this if you found it useful. Comment if you have a question!