Unhappy at Work? Change How You Feel About Your Work

Unhappy at Work? Change How You Feel About Your Work

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by Deborah Brown-Volkman

Work can be frustrating and stressful sometimes.

Yet no matter how tough your job is, you'll need a healthy mind and body to tackle it. If you are eating poorly, not exercising, or internalizing stress, you won't feel well. And if you don't feel well, you can't treat your career with the attention and respect it deserves. Without energy, you cannot make your career as fulfilling as it could be.

As a career coach, I speak to hundreds of people each year who are unhappy with their careers. When I ask them what they eat, how physically active they are, and how they handle stress, their answers do not surprise me. One by one, they tell me that they are not taking care of themselves.

How can you love what you do when you don't feel you best? How can you build momentum in your career when you are tired? How can you fulfill your dreams when you don't have the energy to make it happen?

You can change how you feel about your work. Here are some things you can do to make this happen:

1. Let Go of Anger
Anger is a normal emotion. But, when you cling to a painful emotion such as anger, you cannot feel energized. When you free yourself of angry thoughts, by forgiving yourself and others, you will free up a lot of mental space which can be filled with newfound energy.

Solution: Decide to let your anger go, so you feel better and more productive.

2. Let Go of Blame
We are a society of blamers. We all do it. Even though we criticize others for not taking responsibility, when it's our turn to be responsible, we tend to look outward to assign blame if something goes wrong. Blame feels good, because we don't like to admit being wrong. The downside to blame is that it allows you to stay stuck when you could actively be trying to improve the situation.

Solution: Decide against assigning blame. Blame will drag down your energy level. If something at work is not going well, accept what is happening and try to learn from it. This way, you can make progress and move past it.

3. Change Your Beliefs
Your beliefs are powerful. They set the tone and direction for your career. If you say that you want one thing, but actually believe another, the resulting conflict will hold you back. Belief is critical to victory. If you do not believe that you can have a high level of energy in your career, you are unlikely to achieve it.

Solution: Decide to let go of the beliefs that no longer serve you. Instead, focus on believing that you can transform yourself into a healthy, lively person.

4. Change Your Attitude
Compare your career to a journey. As with any journey, you will experience highs and lows along the way, in this case, spread out over many years. When good things are happening in your career, you willfinjd it easier to feel energized. But when more challenging things are occurring, you will naturally find it more difficult to manage your energy efficiently.

Solution: Decide that your attitude will not keep you from being in the best possible mental and physical health you can be.

5. Make Better Choices
Your career is filled with choices. Some of them will empower you, and others will hold you back. Of course, no one intentionally makes bad choices. Every time you ate something that did not nourish your body, or skipped a workout, you probably made what you thought was the best choice at the time. You weighed your options and believed that you were doing the right thing. When you learn to question choices that are bad for you, you can also learn to make better choices in the future.

Solution: Decide to make better choices. This is a vital step toward creating a healthy, energetic new you.

6. Change Your Job?
Does your job increase your energy or drain it from you? Many people stay in their jobs longer than they want to, because they are unsure of what to do next. They tell themselves that the answer will come someday. Whenever that day comes, they will make their move. But in the meantime, they are stagnant and unhappy.

Solution: Decide to change your job if you are unhappy in the one you have now and you have given it your best shot.

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

Deborah Brown-Volkman is the president of Surpass Your Dreams, Inc. a career and mentor coaching company that has been delivering a message of motivation, success, and personal fulfillment since 1998. Deborah is the author of Coach Yourself To A New Career: A Book To Discover Your Ultimate Profession, which can be found on amazon.com. To learn more visit Deborah's site Surpass Your Dreams, send an e-mail to info@surpassyourdreams.com, or call 631-874-2877.

Succeed in the workplace! Find great tools and resources for succeeding at work: Workplace Resources for Dealing With Your Job.

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