Do you feel satisfied at the end of the week that you’ve accomplished something or made a difference at work, or is it a good week for you when you get as far as Wednesday before you wish it was the weekend?
It amazes me (although I understand totally from past experience) how many people spend five days of the week wishing and waiting for the other two. Five-sevenths of your life is a lot to throw away…
Of course the theory of enjoying your work doesn’t always stand up to the realities of the job you have. I think it’s a tragedy that so many kids these days are brought up to believe that they’ll be lucky to get any kind of job at all, and never put the time or effort into working out what they would LIKE to do. Working that out is one of the best time investments I ever made, and I have to say, continues to be something I re-evaluate every now and again. My ideals do tend to change from year to year, as I grow and redefine my priorities.
If you read the biographies of modern millionaires, you’ll find that the majority of them have done this very process.
Back to real life, though. If your passion is surfing and you’re not confident enough to start a surfing holiday tour company (two of those millionaires did!) then there are a few ways you can at least salvage some of your self esteem on the job, as a first step to building the life of your dreams. Here are a few ideas that could help:
- One of the best little tips I use at work (and no, I don’t have my dream job yet, I run this site and ezine after hours while I go to work to pay the bills. I do, however, have a written plan of where I want to get and how I plan to get there) is to take 5 – 10 minutes at the end of the day and write down everything I’ve accomplished. I use it as a lead in to planning the most important (NOT urgent) things I want to achieve the next day, but that’s strictly optional, and doesn’t work with some kinds of jobs (like helpdesk support and other crisis response positions). When I can see, in front of me in my diary, that the day has had a result, I find it much easier to put it behind me & go home in a positive frame of mind. Over time, it even made it easier to turn up in the mornings 😉
- Dealing with Office Politics: if you find that the gossip and backstabbing at work follows you no matter how many job changes and transfers you make, welcome to the real world. it is an unfortunate fact of life that any hierarchical structure will create political manoeuvring. That doesn’t, however, mean that you should bare your fangs and dive right in. I read, once, of a brilliant way to turn the tables on the frustration that politics can cause.
The gentleman in question kept changing jobs, and even after he decided to settle down he kept being passed over for promotion. Not only was he not familiar with the rules of the political game, he was outspoken enough about his hatred of it that everyone ended up ranged against him.
Fortunately, he had a boss who explained to him that it was this that was holding him back. He decided to take a fresh approach to his attitude to the job.
Of his $40,000 salary, he decided that $10,000 of it was to cover the actual work he accomplished. The rest, he considered was to pay for putting up with all the … (fill in the blank yourself – there’s a filter on this list!)
Needless to say, he shortly got his promotion, and I found life much easier once I took on the same perspective. - One last tip; mentally separate out what you love to do from what you are paid to do (if, in fact, they are not the same), and tie them back together like this: you get the money to do what you love to do as a direct reward for going to work and doing what you’re paid for. This is the old carrot and stick routine. Once you connect a reward with something, it’s not so hard to make yourself do it again.
Hopefully, this will give you a starting point to work from, but the bottom line that I want you to take away from this issue is the idea that any job can be easy or hard, and the difference between the two is NOT in the job itself. It’s in you. Change your attitude, change your perspective, and the job will seem like a totally different ball game.
Best wishes,
Crystal
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