Whether you love your job or hate it, there’s no escaping the fact that work is where most people spend the majority of their time. In fact, even outside of work hours it’s likely that you spend a fair amount of time thinking about work too.
With so much time spent focusing on work life, it’s crucial to find at least some level of enjoyment in what you do. If that feels impossible and you’re feeling stuck, and dreading Monday mornings each week, read on to find out how you can turn your work situation around for the better…
Assess Your Role
Falling out of love with your work life can happen for any number of reasons, so it can be helpful to examine further precisely what it is about your work that is making you unhappy. By identifying the root causes of your dissatisfaction, you can begin to work on changing your situation for the better.
Once you have identified the problems, take some time to consider options that could help you to resolve these issues.
If the commute to work is your biggest bugbear, then look at ways that this can be resolved. You could see if you can reduce the amount of time you spend commuting each week by seeing if you are able to work from home once a week or condense your hours into a four day week instead of five days, for example.
Alternatively, you could see if there are ways for you to start work earlier in the day and leave before the traffic gets crazy so that you avoid the chaos of rush hour.
Search for Positives
Take some time to think about the positive aspects of your job, if you struggle to find any, then try to think about the parts of your post that you prefer. Are there ways to incorporate more of what you do like doing into your role?
Introducing more of the tasks that you do like into your day could make life at work a lot more pleasant.
Try to remember a time when you were happy at work, what was it about the job that was so different? Think about ways that you may be able to bring more of this into your current role.
Take a Mindful Approach
Disliking your job can sometimes escalate into feeling in a bad mood even when you’re not at work, and develops into a general dislike of everything about your role. Try to take a mindful approach to your job to break down the overwhelming feelings that may engulf you.
Giving each task your full attention and focusing on exactly what you are doing in that very moment will not only free you from overwhelming feelings, but can also help to minimise stress levels too.
Make it Special
Yep, you read that right – it is possible to make your day at work special even if you really dislike your job! Making your workday special is all about introducing moments of happiness into your day.
Why not prepare yourself a delicious lunch to take into work with you that you can look forward to eating? Or, why not arrange to go out for lunch with a friend during your lunch break; other options could be taking a walk to clear your mind and get some fresh air, or even take a yoga class if you have time.
Recognizing that there are moments of happiness to be found in your workday is sure to make it feel a lot easier to get yourself to work each day.
Stress
In today’s fast-paced world of work, many people find themselves increasingly feeling stressed out. Trying to balance a career, childcare, relationships, looking after a home, and paying the bills is a juggling act that all too often leaves people feeling stressed.
If your work is the cause of the majority of your stress, then it is worth identifying the exact cause of that stress. Do you feel that you have too much work to do in too little time? Or, is the competitive nature of your work environment making you feel under pressure?
Working out exactly where the stress you are experiencing is emanating from is the first step towards resolving it. Once you’ve identified your stress trigger try to consider some practical solutions that could help you to manage it better. The mindfulness approach mentioned above may also be useful in this situation.
If your workload is leaving you feeling truly overwhelmed, then you may want to speak to your manager to make them aware of the situation before you become burnt out. It may be possible to delegate some of your work to a colleague to take the pressure off of you.
Aim High
If you are happy with the organisation that you work for, but your problem lies with your specific job role, you may want to consider going for a promotion. A new challenge and bigger pay packet may be what’s needed to make you get the spring back in your step and fall in love with work all over again.
Look out for opportunities for promotion and then consider discussing these with your boss, as the saying goes, ‘a change is as good as a rest,’ and if you’re getting paid more too, then so much the better!
Take Time to Dream
If you cannot see yourself ever being happy in your current job, then it may be time to start thinking about where you can move onto next. Taking time to allow yourself to dream about what you would love to do for a living if there were no barriers is an ideal way to reconnect with your beliefs and rediscover your passions.
Thinking about what you studied at college, and what you wanted to be when you were a kid provides a good starting point to trigger your thought process.
When you’ve come up with some ideas about what your dream job would look like, start to think of ways that you can bring more of those qualities into your current role, or how you could start working towards achieving your dream job.
Look for Fulfilment
For many people, a fulfilling job equates to a job that they love to do. Doing a job that is considered worthwhile is rewarding in itself. Working in the police force, for example, is a job that is considered to be both challenging and extremely rewarding.
Careers in the emergency services offer the chance of a long term career with opportunities for progression, click here to find out more about professional qualifications and career progression in policing.
Of course, working in the emergency services isn’t the right career choice for everyone. However, there are lots of other kinds of fulfilling jobs out there for people that are looking for a career that makes a difference to other people’s lives; examples include care work, teaching, and counselling to name but a few.
Volunteer
Volunteering is a great way to boost your career prospects as well as allowing you to sample other lines of work. If a lack of experience is preventing you from leaving your current job, volunteering in a relevant field can help you to gain the experience that you need and will give your resumé a boost too.
An added bonus of volunteering is that you can sample the kind of work that you would like to do to ensure that it really suits you before you make the leap to retrain or quit your current job.
Get a Side Hustle
Side hustles are an increasingly popular way for people to either turn their hobby into a second income stream or just to make some extra cash to boost their savings or pay for extra treats.
Who knows, your side hustle may be just what you need to grow your own business to the point that you can do it full time and wave goodbye to your current job.
Strive for Balance
Striking a balance between work life and home life is not always easy, working overtime, permanently being contactable on your work phone and checking your emails can make it hard to get the balance right between your professional life and your personal life.
However, if you are able to balance both areas of your life successfully, it can be hugely beneficial, and will undoubtedly help to reduce any stress you have been experiencing at work significantly. Achieving the right work-life balance will ensure that even if you feel unhappy in your job, you still have plenty of time away from work to recharge your batteries.
Enjoying your time away from work surrounded by people you care about, chilling out and doing things you love also leaves plenty of time to think about how your work situation could be improved upon, or what you would like to do for a living instead. It’s the perfect opportunity to plan your route to a job that you love.
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