Why Being Highly Sensitive Impacts Your Career

Understanding your highly sensitive self is the best thing that can happen to your career. Being highly sensitive has consequences in the workplace and highly sensitive traits determine the best careers for a highly sensitive person.

Ideal v Reality in the Workplace

When I started a career in the world of Human Resources I naively thought I’d be helping people get the best out of their people. Turns out I was occupied by bureaucracy and firefighting. I helped with one company reorganisation after another. People around me were tired of constant change and uncertainty. And I was too.

Instead of going back to the corporate world after my maternity leave in 2008, I started freelance writing for a living. I followed my passion and made it my career. I have not looked back.

How Being Highly Sensitive Impacts Your Career Choice

During the course of 2009, I first became aware of the term ‘highly sensitive’. I also realised I am an introvert. The reasons why I was so miserable with how I earned my living before I became a writer hit me like a juggernaut.

I suddenly understood my deep hatred of open plan offices. I found the constant noise and regular interruptions from colleagues doing their jobs around me overwhelming. My environment meant I was unable to concentrate. I need quiet to think. Highly sensitive people need quiet to recharge. After the nine to five of open office life, I went home exhausted and unhappy.

I loved those days that were oh so few and far between when I was able to work from home. Once I understood my highly sensitive traits, I suddenly got why flexible schedules worked so much better for me. It turns out I throve working independently. I like peace and solitude whilst I work.

And I also made sense of the fact that the constant company reorganisations unsettled me more than others. I was either planning change, actioning change, living through change or helping other employees accept change. Highly sensitive people do not easily get on board with change.

Best Careers for a Highly Sensitive Person?

It became clear to me why I had loved focussing on the projects that needed deep thinking. I liked work that that needed me to think about the consequences, the details. Work was fulfilling when I was working with the bigger picture. I needed my job to matter and make a difference to people. And that is a common need in the highly sensitive population.

I understood why I hated the constant telephone calls and group video conferences. Highly sensitives dislike small talk and chatter. And man do I hate talking on the telephone.

Furthermore, I hated the political games played by management. I could see the truth through the lies and I felt uncomfortable with my manager. (It possibly didn’t help that he once fell asleep during my performance appraisal).

I understood that I hated being an employee number in a multinational organisation, where nameless faces pass each other in the corridor. I have never been at ease working in a crowd of strangers.

Some people work at their best in a bustling, noisy office. I’m not one of them. I get my ideas and inspiration when it is calm and peaceful around me.

When you understand the impact that your highly sensitive traits have on you, you will also realise that some careers are more suited to a highly sensitive person than others. When you can translate your highly sensitive traits into your needs, you start to understand what makes the best careers for a highly sensitive person. You start to understand the type of workplace you need to thrive.

Understanding Your Highly Sensitive Self is the Best Thing That Can Happen to Your Career

I am one of the lucky ones, my career fell into place. I’m happy that I realised that some working environments will never get the best out of me. And I’m happy I’ve learned how to make sure my career gets the best out of me.

I’m happy that I learned I’m highly sensitive. It meant that I got to know myself better. And it turns out that understanding yourself is the best thing that can happen to your career.

Ready to make a change? Read:How to Find Happiness in the Workplace If You Are a Highly Sensitive Person.

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A version of this post was originally published on The Good Men Project.