SUCCESS Materials – English

Balancing the Personal & Professional Life

A lot of research attention was drawn around the positive features that can help people to balance their professional roles and personal life roles, a balance which leads to greater job satisfaction. Surveys results show that the ability of employees to manage and balance professional and personal (e.g. family, social) life, fully reflects the relationship between positive orientation and job satisfaction (Alessandri, Vecchione, Tisak, Deiana, Caria, & Caprara, 2012, Alessandri, Caprara, & Tisak, 2012, Alessandri, Borgogni, Schaufeli, Caprara, & Consiglio, 2015. This suggests that positive orientation serves as an adaptive personal resource which can facilitate employees’ ability to balance work and non-work requirements and therefore increase their job satisfaction. A recent systematic research survey shows that positive psychological interventions applied in the organizational framework are promising. It seems that they strengthen the well-being and the performances of the employees, as well as to reduce stress, exhaustion, depression and anxiety (Meyers, van Woerkom, & Bakker, 2013).

The Purpose and Meaning on professional counselling were developed in the framework of Positive Psychology as key components of prosperity. Purpose is defined as the recognition and the intention to achieve the goals set as important in a person’s life, while meaning is the sense of importance for the individual existence (Steger & Dik, 2010). The sense of purpose and meaning helps reversing negative emotions, such as despair and loss of control, while increasing the probability  of achieving the goals (McKnight & Κashdan, 2009).

Given the fact that counselling and career guidance counselling is usually carried out during puberty and young adulthood, it is interesting that not until recently concepts of “purpose” and “meaning” have not been explored. are interpreted by the teenagers themselves. In a qualitative research conducted by McLaren (2011), twenty adolescents aged 12-13, received information on “meaning” and “purpose” concepts for career development, the adolescent’s responses the underline the importance of meaning and purpose for their future professional development. These results also reflect that teenagers are in a position to discover the meaning and the calling through interventions and to reap positive results in decision-making, and in the choice of their future career.