You Can't Separate Your Career From Your Wellbeing

We often talk about our careers and our wellbeing as though they are two completely separate things.

Career conversations tend to focus on questions like:

• What job do you want?

• Should you ask for a promotion?

• Is it time for a career change?

• How can you find more meaningful work?

• What skills do you need to develop?

Wellbeing conversations, on the other hand, tend to focus on things like stress, sleep, exercise, relationships and burnout.

But the reality is, you don't leave one part of yourself at the door when you go to work.

Your career affects your wellbeing. And your wellbeing can affect your career.

They are connected.

The Indivisible Self: A different way of thinking about wellness

The Indivisible Self: An Evidence-Based Model of Wellness

One model that really resonates with the way I approach both career development and wellbeing is The Indivisible Self: An Evidence-Based Model of Wellness, developed by researchers Jane Myers and Thomas Sweeney.

What I find particularly interesting about this model is that it wasn't simply developed as a theoretical idea about what wellness should look like.

It evolved through research examining the underlying structure of wellness.

Researchers wanted to better understand how different aspects of wellness were related.

Their research identified five major dimensions of wellness, alongside an overarching Wellness factor.

The model reflects a holistic view of human beings. In other words, we are not simply a collection of separate parts.

We are an indivisible self.

The different areas of our lives and our wellbeing interact with one another. What happens in one area can influence another.

And when I think about the people I work with, I see this all the time.

Because rarely does someone walk into a career conversation with a problem that exists entirely in isolation.

Your career doesn't exist in a vacuum

Think about how much of your life is connected to your work.

Your job can influence how much energy you have left at the end of the day. It can affect your confidence, your relationships, your physical health and the way you feel about yourself.

A difficult work environment might leave you feeling stressed and exhausted.

A job that no longer feels meaningful might affect your motivation.

Constant pressure at work can make it difficult to switch off, even when the working day is over.

And it works the other way around too.

What's happening in your life outside of work can influence how you experience your career and the decisions you make about it.

Perhaps you're juggling work alongside caring responsibilities.

Maybe you're going through a difficult period personally.

Perhaps your health or relationships have changed.

Maybe you're simply exhausted.

All of these experiences can influence how you feel about your job and the decisions you make about your future.

This is why I don't believe we can always separate a person's career concerns from the rest of their life.

The five dimensions of the Indivisible Self

The Indivisible Self model identifies five interconnected areas of wellness:

The Creative Self

This includes the way we think, experience emotions and engage with areas such as work.

From a career perspective, this is particularly interesting.

Our work can contribute to our sense of satisfaction, challenge, growth and identity. But what happens when the work we once enjoyed no longer feels fulfilling?

Sometimes, the issue isn't that we're incapable of doing our jobs.

Sometimes, we've simply changed.

The career that suited us five, ten or twenty years ago may no longer reflect who we are or what we need.

The Coping Self

The Coping Self includes the ways we manage life's challenges, including areas such as stress management, leisure, self-worth and our beliefs about ourselves.

This can have a significant influence on our working lives.

When you're overwhelmed, exhausted or constantly under pressure, it can become much more difficult to think clearly about your future.

You may lose confidence.

You may struggle to make decisions.

You may start believing that the only solution is to escape your current situation.

Sometimes leaving a job is absolutely the right decision. But sometimes, exhaustion can make it difficult to see the full range of options available to us.

The Social Self

The Social Self recognises the importance of our relationships and connections with others.

Our careers don't exist separately from our relationships.

Career decisions can affect our partners, families and friendships. Equally, our responsibilities and relationships can influence the decisions we make about work.

The support or lack of support we experience can also influence how we cope with career challenges and transitions.

This is particularly relevant when working with people navigating significant change.

A career transition may appear to be an individual decision, but it rarely affects just one person.

The Essential Self

The Essential Self incorporates areas connected to meaning, identity and self-care.

This is where career conversations can become much deeper than simply asking, What job do you want next?

Sometimes the real questions are:

• Who am I now?

• What matters to me at this stage of my life?

• Does my definition of success still fit?

• What role do I want work to play in my life?

You can be successful on paper and still feel that something is missing.

You can have the job you once dreamed of and realise that your priorities have changed.

And that's okay.

Our careers aren't static because we aren't static.

The Physical Self

The Physical Self includes areas such as nutrition and exercise.

While we need to be careful not to oversimplify the relationship between physical wellbeing and work, there is an obvious connection between our energy, capacity and ability to engage in our lives.

It's difficult to separate the way we feel physically from the way we experience our work.

Persistent exhaustion, for example, can influence our motivation, concentration and capacity to cope with challenges.

At the same time, a demanding career can affect the time and energy we have available to care for ourselves.

Again, the different parts of our lives are connected.

Sometimes the career isn't the whole problem

This is something I think is particularly important when we talk about burnout and career dissatisfaction.

When you're exhausted and overwhelmed, leaving your job can start to feel like the only solution.

And sometimes, a job change absolutely is the right decision.

But sometimes, the picture is more complicated.

You might love aspects of your work but be carrying far too much in other areas of your life.

You might be questioning your career because you're exhausted and haven't had the opportunity to properly rest.

You might think you need a completely new career when what you actually need is more support, stronger boundaries or the space to reconnect with yourself.

That doesn't mean your career concerns aren't valid.

It simply means that before making a significant decision, it can be helpful to look at the whole picture.

Career success should support your life, not consume it

For a long time, we've been encouraged to think about career success in fairly narrow terms.

The next promotion.

A bigger salary.

A more impressive job title.

Climbing the ladder.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with ambition.

But I believe we also need to ask a different question:

What does a successful and sustainable career actually look like for you?

Because the most impressive job isn't necessarily the right job.

A promotion might look like progress to everyone else while leaving you with less time, energy and capacity for the things that matter most to you.

Equally, changing careers or taking a role that looks like a step sideways or even backwards might create a life that feels far more sustainable and fulfilling.

Career success isn't just about what you achieve.

It's also about whether you can sustain it.

Why I don't separate career and wellbeing

As a career development practitioner and wellbeing coach, the Indivisible Self model provides a helpful framework for something I have increasingly observed throughout my work.

People are whole people.

You can have an excellent résumé and still be exhausted.

You can be successful in your career and still feel disconnected from yourself.

You can know exactly what you should do next but lack the energy or confidence to take action.

And you can focus entirely on improving your wellbeing while ignoring the fact that your work is a significant source of stress or dissatisfaction.

Sometimes, we need to look at both.

The Indivisible Self model reminds us that wellness involves multiple, interconnected dimensions of our whole self.

Looking at your whole picture

If you're currently questioning your career, feeling exhausted or wondering what comes next, it might be helpful to pause before focusing solely on the job itself.

Instead, consider the bigger picture.

• How is my work affecting my wellbeing?

• How is my wellbeing affecting the way I currently feel about my work?

• What else is happening in my life that might be influencing how I feel right now?

• Have I outgrown my career or am I simply exhausted?

• What would a sustainable version of career success look like for me?

Reference:

Hattie, J. A., Myers, J. E., & Sweeney, T. J. (2004). A factor structure of wellness: Theory, assessment, analysis, and practice. Journal of Counselling & Development, 82(3), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00321.x