Dissatisfied with your job?
That's a sure sign a change is needed
If you're dissatisfied with your job, that's a sure sign a change has to take place.
We singles may be more prone to workplace discontentment because our career can become a bigger part of our life than it does for married folks.
Regardless of your marital status, when you're frustrated with your employment, it can cause additional stress on top of the normal job tensions. It's hard to do well in a situation you don't like.
Time to change
When you're dissatisfied with your job and things don't look like they're going to improve, you have to make a choice.
You can change yourself, or you can change your job. Those are hard options, but they're the answer to ending your misery.
It may be impossible for you to change jobs, or so inconvenient that you simply have to stay where you are. Changing yourself requires that you revise your attitude. Of course that's easier said than done, but if you have the right motivation, that's half the battle. Personal change means seeing life from a different perspective.
Being dissatisfied with your job makes it easy to catastrophize. Every disappointment gets blown out of proportion. Petty annoyances become an excuse for stewing for days. Unintended slights make you angry and defensive.
Stop! Take several steps backward. This kind of bitterness can force you into a victim mentality in which you feel that the whole world is piling on top of you.
It's not.
It may feel that way, but that's your perception of things, not necessarily the facts. Remember, feelings are not always reliable.
How to change yourself instead
- 1. Where would I be without it? One of the techniques I found useful in the workplace was to imagine where I'd be without my job. Yikes! That makes you appreciate it in a big hurry.
2. Change your expectations. It's easy to take things for granted when you're dissatisfied with your job. Again, your perspective has become skewed. Sure, we'd all like our boss to be completely understanding, reasonable, cheerful, encouraging, and supportive, but often that's not the case. He or she may have pressures on them or personal problems we just don't understand. It's easy to take everything personally, but if you remember that you can choose how you respond to a situation, that gives you power you never used before.
3. Enlarge you life. If your job is your life, then your whole life will be lousy if you're dissatisfied with your job. Don't give your job that much power! Develop other interests that you can look forward to. As you get your satisfaction and fulfillment from other parts of your life, you'll stop expecting your job to provide things it simply can't.
4. Leave it there. We singles are guilty of obsessing over things when we get home at night. If you wear a name tag or security badge on your job, get into the habit of only thinking about work when you have your badge on. If you aren't required to wear a tag or badge, buy a nice pen that you use only at work. When you leave work, leave the pen there, at your desk or work station. This symbolic gesture can help separate your work life from your home life.
When is it time to change jobs?
Sometimes you do have to change jobs to get what you want from life. Only you know whether and when you need to do that.
As a practical matter, it's always wise to have the next job waiting before you quit your current job. Being unemployed is one of life's biggest stresses. Don't get angry and walk off the job. Go to the restroom and splash cold water on your face. Calm down. Get control again. Think with your mind instead of your emotions.
Then, if you can't change yourself or make your current job work, start looking for a new one.
If you're dissatisfied with your job, don't expect your new job to be perfect either. That's unrealistic. The perfect job just doesn't exist. They all have shortcomings, and we need to learn to live with them.
Don't leave God out of it
If you're a Christian, being dissatisfied with your job can be a nudge by God that you need to either change yourself or move on to something better he has waiting for you.
By praying and surrendering to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you can make a better decision.
God can give you the strength and courage you need to deal with your current job, or to step out toward a new one.
Very few people work the same job all their life any more. Jobs, homes, even people come and go, but God is reliable. When you make him the source of your worth in life, everything else falls into its rightful place.
How to be more satisfied with your job and your life
Yuck! My whole life stinks!
Well, yeah, we do feel that way sometimes, and we're in a deep rut and can't seem to climb out of it.
But what if you had reliable advice from somebody who's already been there, done that--several times? And what if that somebody had made plenty of mistakes, learned from them and told you exactly how to avoid them in your own life?
That's what my new ebook, Single & Sure is all about. Living happier. More confidently. More fulfilled.
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