Money Psychology and Your Career Choices

By most, career choices are driven by getting the biggest pay check possible. Often though making money is a smoke screen, we believe that making more money will bring us happiness, and earn us the respect or admiration we want from people whose opinion we care about.   But recent evidence establishes that higher income does not always translate into higher levels of happiness.  When pursuing career choices that get business done better, financial rewards remain important, but the satisfaction of creating social and environmental value through your work becomes central to the definition of career success.

As an emerging responsible professional, it is crucial though that you truly understand your relationship with money and how it influenced your past career choices. Better understanding your relationship to money is critical for you to effectively make informed decisions about the career choices most compatible with your career and financial goals.  Beyond your relationship with money as a individual, you might also be afraid of the potential negative impact of a career change on your relationship with your spouse, your parents, or your friends. You might be wondering how to constructively talk about money with people important in your life so that you can pursue career choices that might generate a lower income but will increase your job satisfaction level. Would your spouse leave you if you were making less money? Would your friends or family think less of you?

Fortunately, you do not have to wrestle with these questions on your own! There are great resources out there to help you in the process of articulating your relationship to money and how to productively talk about money with loved ones. Here are 3 resources and tips you can use to move past your money fears as you build your path to meaning and money:

Know Your Money Personality - A highly sought after speaker, and the author of 5 books about money and relationships, Olivia Mellan has developed an excellent system to help individuals build a balanced relationship to money.  Through her online money personality assessment at www.moneyharmony.com, you can determine your money personality and better articulate your relationship to money.   For instance, if you are a spender, having more money will lead you to overspend more.  If you are a monk, more money means more internal conflicts.  Or if you are an avoider, you will feel more anxious if you have more money, while if you are a hoarder you will save more compulsively. Through the www.moneyharmony.com website, you can also find free resources and frameworks that will help you get money conversations started (or conflicts resolved) with your loved people. The higher your financial expectations, the fewer your career choices. Better understanding your money personality and how it influences your career choices can tremendously help you as you explore your responsible career options.

Base your career choices on facts, not anecdotes - The continuum of perceived career choices seems to offer options clustered around two extremes: (1) make a lot of money while working for a corporation that does more harm than good in the world and (2) make barely enough to live on while making a difference through nonprofit work. However, today, accumulating evidence shows that there are more career choices today than ever before to do well while doing good. Whether in renewable energy, sustainable foods, education, healthcare or by working for a values-based business, a Benefit Corporation, or in nonprofit management, there are more ways today to make a comfortable income while building a better world. Being able to concretely and objectively present the data about the possible financial costs of a different career choice will considerable help while talking about your future career choices with your loved ones.

Build your new support system - Maybe your friends and current contacts are not aligned with your responsible career goals. If your relationships feel more like 'keeping up with the Jones' than like 'relaxing with laid back and like-minded friends', it might be time to expand your circle of friends to include more friends that do not put much emphasis on material rewards and external signs of wealth. If this is your case, attending professional events organized by Net Impact, Green Drinks, the Social Venture Network, or Justmeans will help you build relationships with like-minded professionals whose definition on career success is more aligned with yours.

In sum, your career choices are impacted by your relationship to money, by your ability to constructively manage money conversations with loved ones, as well as by the place of money in your relationships with your current friends and contacts. By exploring these dimensions and how they have impacted your previous career choices, you can take action to build a career path that will successfully combine impact and income.

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