Personality Clash with your Dream Job? Here is the Solution!

If personality clash can be linked to relationships, why then can’t we link it to our jobs and how we feel about implementing it?

We have every reason to believe that we are in a relationship with our jobs/ career. We spend a large amount of time each day at our various workplaces which average at least 7 hours per day.

Personality clash at work is real. If you are an indoor person and your job requires you to be outdoor, that’ll be a big deal for you and possibly a deal breaker. This goes vice versa.

I bet you are wondering: “Didn’t this person know the job requirements before applying and finally getting the job?”

Yes, you make a valid point. But what if this person deeply wants to be outgoing, but finds it so difficult to break this personality struggle inside?

What if this individual is trying so hard to be the outgoing person because he/she believes that he/she can create a change in humanity through this job.

Let’s create a hypothetical scenario;

Sonia receives an offer letter to become a sales person at the company of her dreams. She soon resumes work at the new office.

Soon into the new job, she realizes that she can make an impact, but discovers that she consistently has this internal struggle with making new business/ client and handling her personality.

Read: 6 Behaviours Co-workers use to Judge your Personality

Sometimes, she isn’t just in the right frame of mind to try to convince a prospective client to hire her company. The reason being that she would rather want to be left alone.

Sales people are great at driving revenues and frankly, I believe it’s one industry that will never go extinct. You just need that human connection to increase your number of clients and the sales team comes through!

Let’s assume that Sonia has a constant tussle with whether she is an introvert or extrovert.

She’s an ambivert!

She maintains a fairly stable balance between being an extrovert or an introvert. And most times, it very well depends on her mood at the time and the people she’s surrounded with.

It’s a consistent struggle and the sales profession may very well not be for her. However, if Sonia decides to quit this job at this stage, she will be giving up on her dreams.

Let’s not forget that this company was always her dream company. Don’t you think that Sonia shouldn’t give up at this point without a try?

Wouldn’t she be a failure if she decides to leave something she has worked so hard for without giving it a try? Let’s not forget that she went through so much job application stage, and you now how though that can be.

The question here isn’t whether she loves the sales job or not — no, that’s not the issue at hand!

The issue here is that she has this inner battle. This inner struggle that sometimes hinders her from carrying out her tasks effectively.

She has this personality clash within her that may make her refrain from meeting up with prospective clients.

For this article, my primary focus is on someone that truely wants to be successful in a position that conflicts with his/ her personality.

Read: Your Handwriting Says a lot about your Personality (Analyze it!)

This is a difficult one and quite tricky too. What do I suggest, you ask?

I say fake it till you make it!

If you truely want to excel in your position, you can’t remain in your comfort zone. You need to keep pushing day in, day out.

Challenge yourself to do things you never thought you could do. You’d be amazed. One thing I’ve noticed is that as humans, we can surpass our expectations once we put our minds to it.

According to Parkinson’s Law,

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

So, if you have one hour to do a task, it’ll take you approximately one hour to complete the task. On the other hand, if you were given three hours to do the same task, it will take you approximately three hours to perform the same task that was completed in one hour.

Where am I going with this?

If you are allotted a certain time to do something you feel clashes with your personality, you can brace yourself with the time you have and ensure that you complete the task.

Stop telling yourself that you can’t do it, or that it isn’t in tune with your personality unless it’s not something that you’d love to do.

It’s a good thing you accepted this job position. You accepted the challenge to be your best self. Now is the time to prove that you are up to the task indeed.

Set key performance indicators

It’s not enough to want to plan to beat your expectations, you should also set KPIs that you can use to measure your success.

“Am I actually carrying out my intentions?” “Have I set goals?” “Do I have metrics in place?” “Am I being consistent?” “Am I focused, do I have ratios in place to help me reach the objectives for my position?”

These and more are some of the questions you should ask yourself on a daily basis if you don’t want your personality to jeopardize your job.

In the long run, the message of this post is to remind you that if you truly love your job position/ responsibilities and want to move forward with it, then your personality shouldn’t hold you back.

So back to the Sonia story, she would have to push herself to carry out her job responsibilities even though sometimes it may clash with her personality.

There is nothing too impossible for any of us to achieve! I think that’s the mindset we need as workers.

Did you enjoy this post? Please leave a comment behind sharing ways you stay motivated on your job. Please share how you blend your personality to your work.

I’ll be pleased to hear from you.