Most people don't love their jobs. In fact, many studies show that only about 1 in 5 people really enjoy their jobs, about 1 in 5 actively dislike their jobs, and the rest are fairly neutral on the topic.
Since most of us spend more time working than doing anything else except sleeping, this seems unfortunate. Unless you're the kind of person who derives more satisfaction from complaining about something than you would from enjoying that thing (I know there are some people like that), it seems as though it would be better to like work more.
Lots of how-to-enjoy-your-work-more articles focus on finding a different career, one that ignites and/or fulfills your passions. But what if you're in a job that - for whatever reason - you can't or don't want to change? Maybe you've spent years building a skill or expertise, and in order to change jobs, you'd have to start at a much lower level in another field. Perhaps your current job provides something that you do like - a short commute, good benefits - that you're not willing to give up. Or it could be that, in this strange economy, you simply think the smartest move is to stay put.
It's easy to assume that you can't change the way you feel about your job. We say to ourselves, 'it is what it is.' But there are actually a number of things you can do to enjoy your job more, starting today:
Stop hanging with the haters. In every organization, there will always be some people who take great delight in trashing everything. Ultimate cynics, they'll regale you with stories of how the boss is an idiot, the company is out to get you, the rest of the employees are chumps, and the work is ridiculous and meaningless. While there's a certain mean-spirited, self-righteous satisfaction in taking the everyone's-a-loser-but-us approach, in the long run it will just make you more unhappy. Hearing only the negatives about your workplace makes it hard to see the positives that may exist, and it ultimately will make you feel worse about yourself (if this place and these people are so awful, why am I still here?). Spending time with colleagues who have a more balanced view can dramatically shift your emotional response to your job.
Ask for more of what you like. Think about whether there are some parts of your job that you like more than others. It may be that your employer would be open to your doing more of those things. One woman I know, an executive assistant for many years, realized that the part of her job she really liked was coordinating events. She noticed that her company often engaged an outside resource to manage larger events, and asked her boss if she could take on some of that work. Her boss agreed. Now, six years later, her entire job consists of coordinating events for her boss' part of the business - and she reports that she's 'having a great time at work, most days.'
Talk to yourself differently. I often write about the power of self-talk; it's especially important when it comes to enjoying (or not enjoying) your job. A few years ago I was coaching a very senior client who was unhappy because he'd recently found out that he wasn't being considered as a candidate for the top job in his company. The CEO, my client was told, had decided to groom a younger executive for the job. For about six months, my client's basic self-talk message was "Why should I stay here? - I'll never get a bigger job, and I'll end my career never having run anything." We talked about whether he should start a job search, but he wasn't ready to do that - a lot of factors both personal and professional tied him to his current job. Then he started to question his own self-talk: Do I really need to be the CEO to be happy? What’s wrong with my current job? He shifted his self-talk message to: “I have a big, complex, interesting job, and I can have a huge positive impact on the organization and on the people who work for me.” Not only is he enjoying his job – he’s built a kick-ass team, and they’re getting great results.
Change Your Boss. Whether people enjoy their jobs is highly correlated with how they're managed is. A poor manager – disengaged, critical, self-serving, untrustworthy – can put a real damper on anyone’s work satisfaction. In mid-size or larger companies, you can look for a job working for another manager – especially if your job skills are easily transferable to another part of the business. Even If this isn’t possible, you can sometimes change your existing boss. Most people, when they have a less-than-great boss, just throw up their hands and assume they have to live with it. But fairly often, a bad boss is not a bad person – he or she is just bad at managing others. If you get clear about the one or two things you’d most like him or her to do differently, and ask for those changes in a respectful and hopeful way, you might be surprised at the positive response you get.
Learn something. Often, not being happy at work just comes down to being bored. If you can do your job with one hand and half your brain – no wonder you’re not happy. Most people are happiest when they’re at an optimum level of engagement: neither under-challenged or over-challenged. If your learning curve has flattened out at work, think about what you might learn that would make your job more interesting and make you more useful to the organization: learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge can increase both job security and job satisfaction.
Work harder. This may seem entirely counterintuitive, but it’s part of what I said earlier about the ‘right’ degree of challenge. You may feel like you’re being clever to get away with clocking in at 9, leaving on the dot of 5 and taking a long lunch – but over time, only doing what’s needed and not a bit more is likely to backfire. In Dan Pink’s excellent book, Drive, he notes that ‘purpose’ and ‘mastery’ are two of the things we humans find most motivating: finding meaning in what we do, and getting really good at it. By just skating through work, you’re depriving yourself of both. Instead, think about where you could lean into your job to find more purpose, or to get more expert. Do you enjoy helping younger colleagues grow? Spend more time coaching people who report to you. Are you fascinated by the impact social media could have on your business? Talk to the folks in your business who are exploring that and figure out how to apply it to your work.
Often just making the effort to find more satisfaction at work can have a positive impact. Realizing that your experience is more within your control than you thought can be a very positive thing – and could be the start of a long-term shift toward more happiness at work. Just think: you could make it so that Monday morning is something you look forward to…
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Check out Erika Andersen’s latest book, Leading So People Will Follow, and discover how to be a followable leader. Booklist called it “a book to read more than once and to consult many times.”
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