How many times have you heard “I need a new job!” from a friend?
How often do they act on it?
How many times have you said this to yourself?
And how often have you acted on it?
86% of people are currently unhappy at their job. These are stats from 2013, but from my work with clients I don’t think much has changed. That’s a staggering percentage of people who don’t enjoy their job.
It’s not easy to just jump to the next job or start a business. It can be scary. I was fortunate enough to be laid off during the past recession. I was pushed out. Forced to figure out what I wanted to do next. I was fortunate to be set-up to start my own business.
My Network
I had built up a network, tried and failed at a few ideas while at my day job, and I had a bit of small success when I was let go from my day job with Domino Connection. My User and Customer Experience (UX and CX) company. I made the decision to go for it.
All this was possible because I started Work Happy Now back in 2008. I used a lot of the knowledge that I researched and wrote about here to make myself a success.
When I look back on it. I was broken or at least my mind felt broken. I had to go to the doctors because of the mounting stress in between my shoulder blades. One day was so particularly bad that my right arm went numb. The doctor prescribed me an antidepressant. I was in bad shape.
I was scared to quit, but my job was slowly killing me. Something had to give.
Ok, so do you enjoy going to work?
If you don’t I can probably guess the reason.
It’s usually one of three things:
- No purpose (aka no passion)
- Terrible boss
- Lack of progress
When it’s at least 2 of the 3 reasons people usually want to quit, but like me they are afraid and don’t want to take the risk. My boss was actually really good at my last job. He tried to get me training and help me along, but I was in the wrong department. When it’s all three most people quit.
When you don’t have purpose then you’ll get bad results.
When you have bad results then you won’t see progress.
When you don’t see progress you lose your motivation.
See where this is going?
A spiral downward.
And you can’t get off.
I’ve gone through many depressed states because of my lack of purpose at work. I woke up rolled out of bed, put on pants, and went to work without even brushing my teeth. It was so bad on some days I would completely avoid work. I pretended to work and the more I avoided work the more depressed I became.
You don’t have to hate your job like I did.
I made so many mistakes that I wish I could change.
I didn’t take advantage of free training because I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't take advantage of growing my network through my co-workers. I didn't challenge myself to take on new projects.
Do you feel you were meant to do something different with your life?
The next question needs some honesty.
What is holding you back?
Your education? You can improve your skills and strengths online and offline.
Your time? How much TV (movies, TV shows, YouTube, etc.) do you watch each week? Your focus is in other directions instead of doing projects that you care about. You have time you aren’t utilizing.
Not sure what you want to do? Then you have lack a purpose. You can do some soul searching. I suggest create a Happiness Map. You can learn how on the free e-course, Discover your Purpose, that we created for you.
You can start working on your current skills, so you can improve your resume and build a career that will make you happier. You may want to stay in your current line of work or start your own business, but whatever it is you can start taking action today. I started off researching work happiness, then expanded into career coaching, then I expanded into User Experience to help people with their websites, and formed a partnership with a friend.
I learned from one of the best coaches and now we are partners at Coach the Life Coach, where we teach people the skills to be a coach and start building a coach practice.
The idea for me was to incorporate my different strengths and passions into my work.
I fulfill my need to teach with Coach the Life Coach. I fulfill my problem solving skills with Domino Connection. I fulfill my need to write and coach here at Work Happy Now.
Always Growing
This took time and is far from perfect. I would like to earn more money, so I can travel more with my family. Nothing is perfect, but I'm so grateful for the extra time and flexibility that my career has afforded me.
If you see your next great job or business as a mountain you’ll procrastinate and never take any action. You have to break down your journey into smaller increments. When you create your Happiness Map it focuses on how you want to feel while you work not just doing something and later regretting the time spent on the project.
I explain more about how to build a happiness foundation and create a happiness map so you can do great work in my free email course that doesn’t cost you a penny. If you read each email and take action on it I guarantee you’ll be off to a great start building a career that you love.
So how do you want to feel while you work? Do you want to feel free, challenged, excited, calm...
* Statistics from Washington Post Article
Quite a startling statistic that 86% of people are currently unhappy in their current job. I did not realise it was so high. Whether this is down to the employer not setting the right expectations, not engaging with their teams effectively (employee engagement) or correctly managing culture.
Equally, employees do not meet companies 'half way'. Staff often take the easy way out, become too distracted or are easily frustrated if they do not get what they want. This is a really difficult topic to reconcile as everyone is different and has different expectations.