Giving yourself grace: Applying the 80/20 rule to your career

For the last decade, conversations around building a career have invariably included an emphasis on work as an extension of oneself.  Somewhere in that discussion, many of us became convinced that a career isn’t a successful one if you aren’t exploring your passions or coming to work every day in love with your job. As a millennial, I feel particularly connected to this narrative, because it’s one that so many professionals in my generation have come up against – as teenagers, we were told that the right way to build a good life was to attend university, explore our interests and come out with a job doing something we’re passionate about. 

In my management consulting career, I’ve had the privilege of working with colleagues of all ages across a multitude of organizations. One thing I’ve learned through that experience is that so many of us are still searching for the “perfect” job or role, and feeling like failures if we haven’t found it yet. I think this feeling of “professional listlessness” or malaise is so potent that if I could go back and say one thing about my career to 21-year-old me, it would be this: “Relax, give yourself some grace, and don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” 

You are more than your career

The 80/20 rule typically suggests that 80% of outcomes are the result of 20% of inputs, i.e., that a small subset of actions has an outsized impact on eventual consequences. For navigating careers, I’ve found a slight reinterpretation of this principle to be incredibly helpful: a good job should give you 80% of the satisfaction you need from a role, the additional 20% you work to find elsewhere in your life. In essence, it’s challenging to have a job be completely reflective of the entirety of your passions and interests, so find one that gets you most of the way there. 

Still, I encourage leaders, and especially young professionals, to know what their non-negotiables are. If you’re willing to forego that last 20%, you need to have a strong understanding of what factors or opportunities have to make it into the remaining 80%. To use myself as an example, it’s imperative for me to work with kind, intelligent people and to feel as though what I do for a living contributes more positively than not to society. Those are some of the things in my 80%. For the items that are missing, I try to be intentional about prioritizing them in my personal life through other outlets.  

Furthermore, it’s a mistake to put so much emphasis on your career as a 1-to-1 reflection of yourself. You aren’t just defined by what you do at work, so find ways to exercise your passions in your personal life. Good leaders don’t just let feelings of disaffection fester; they’re intentional about ensuring their proverbial “cups” get filled. If your job is missing something important to you, tackle that obstacle on two fronts: try to find a means to inject that particular interest into your role and give yourself a chance to pursue that passion outside of it. Yes, sometimes a job simply isn’t a fit, but developing a skillset of intentionality and your own personal “80/20” will serve you well anywhere. 

It’s OK to not have all the answers

I’ve written before about how effective leaders need to break the habit of self-comparison in order to grow and develop, but I also think that self-comparison contributes heavily to feelings of dissatisfaction with our lives and careers. Indeed, social media has contributed to this mental trap, but even in the workplace, we’re often focusing on other people’s highlight reels. You’ll quite easily notice a coworker’s promotion, or a colleague being recognized by your organization’s leadership, but you might miss their stress, frustration or disaffection. Constantly comparing ourselves to others leads to a strange feeling where, seemingly, we are the only ones who don’t have all the answers. 

I think leaders need to be honest with themselves about the goods and the bads of their careers. Recognize where a job or company meets their need and allows them an outlet for their passions, but also be attentive to the areas that are lacking. Good leaders also need to recognize that they’re likely not the only ones struggling with feelings of uncertainty; most everyone is looking for a way to put food on the table, a roof over their head and to feel decent about the way they’re doing it. The “perfect” job doesn’t really exist, and that’s more freeing to realize than it is disappointing.

Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.

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