How to love your job

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I guess it was always been a common thing for each of us to not like the job that we are doing right now. Or maybe you are sick of your work that everything seems so dull and boring.

Based on the Global poll conducted by Gallup, they have uncovered that out of the world’s one billion full-time workers, only 15% of people are engaged at work. That means that a significant 85% of people are not happy with their current jobs.

With this percentage of unmotivated workers, you might be one of them too. But why is it most of us doesn’t love what we are doing right now? Why is it everyone seemed so trapped in this so called “work” or “job” that we felt like we deserve something better.

Common reasons why most people hate their jobs

The following are the most common reason why employees hate their jobs:

1.Bad boss
One of the reasons might be the type of boss that we have. I can pretty say that when you have good manager or boss, you certainly will have this enthusiasm and will significantly affect how you do your work at the office. But contrary to this, having the worst boss might even give you hard time getting up every morning. This is also one of the reason why good employee leave the company.

2.Stagnant growth
Doing the same job over and over again without having the chance to get any promotion, corporate growth or even personal growth leads us this feeling of stagnant. Since work significantly affects our life as we spend most of our time, it usually affects our perspective of our own life that leads us to think that our life is boring and dull. We people have innate character to seek improvement and better, when there is no clear path for us, that’s the time the problem arises.

3.Working environment
There are workplaces that growth and good bosses exist but having a toxic working environment and colleagues will still not make you love your job.

You are spending 8 hours or more of your time in your work, and these people that you work with becomes really part of the factor whether you will love your job or not. Imagine being with people you don’t like for 8 hours a day; how difficult would that be?

That’s equivalent to torture!

4.They don’t feel appreciated
We, humans, are not driven mainly by logic, most of our decisions in life and actions we are taking unconsciously are mostly driven by our emotions. Having a work that doesn’t recognize your efforts and hears your voice is equivalent to working like a machine, you are only expected to do what you must do and that’s all. No one will ever want a job that sees their employee as machines that operates to make the company works.

There are other tons of reason why employees hate their jobs and these are only the common ones.

The book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”

I recently read the book “So good they can’t ignore you” by Cal Newport, this book gave me an insight on what it means to have a fulfilling job or to love your job. It gave me a different perspective on how I can do better on my 9-5 job.

Contrary to what we all know about making a leap to our passion, the book debunks the idea of “following your passion”. We often hear from others that following our passion is the way to go, but many are being blinded by what lies ahead.

There are people who decided to “follow their passion” and failed miserably as they are not aware on what what passion really is.

What is “Passion”?

According to merriam-webster, it is defined as;

“a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept…”

In the eyes of each employee, this is simply “something that you believed that you love doing and hoped that it can pay your bills”.

That definition is more true than harsh, and the reality is, we hoped that we are being paid to do something that we love. In his book, Cal Newport has concluded a critical concept when it comes to passion.

“Passion takes time and a side effect of mastery” – Cal Newport

Based on the research performed by Amy Wrzesniewski,

“…the happiest, most passionate employees are not those who followed their passion into a position but instead those who have been around long enough to become good at what they do. On reflection, this makes sense. If you have many years’ experience, that you’ve had time to get better at what you do and develop a feeling of efficacy. It also gives you time to develop strong relationships with your coworker and to see many examples of your work benefiting others. What’s important here, however, is that this explanation though reasonable, contradicts the passion hypothesis, which instead emphasizes the immediate happiness that comes from matching your job to a true passion.”

Passion is something that we develop from within, this is contrary to our understanding of passion as something innate to us or that we already have it.

The truth is, it is something that we develop as we gained experience in doing something that makes us love it. People who were able to love what they are doing are basically those who became expert and was able to see beyond what they are doing. They never saw it as something that they are forced to do but something they are good at, or simply their expertise.

Let me ask you this, if you are good at something? Wouldn’t you most likely do it often and even love it than those activities that you miserably failed or messed up?

3 Ways to love your Job

These are my key takeaways on how to love your job based on this book.

1. Building your Career capital

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll be where you’ve always been” – T.D. Jakes

Again, those who love their job are generally those who does well in doing it. In order for you to love your job you need first to build your Career capital, this is basically the rare and valuable skills relevant to your job.

What are those skills that is considered valuable at your job? It can be the following:

• Communication skills
• Charisma
• Writing skills
• Management of people
• Selling skills

You must understand what is considered to be a “great work” at your job and from that you can identify the relevant skills that you need to build and develop.

Once you have identified it, this is the time that you must work your ass off in being the best and gained that the skill. Again, this is not something that only certain people can acquire or believe that it was a talent, this is what is available to everyone and that’s “Hardwork”.

2. Create control

“Control your own destiny, control your own destiny!” – Stephen Curry

Those who become better at their work are often have the control when it comes to their work, this is also the reason why most of employee who can’t control anything hate their jobs. They don’t have the control over their time, they can’t demand their salary, they are not being appreciated and their opinions doesn’t matter.

Loving your job means creating control and this can only be created if you have acquired enough career capital and become valuable.

3. Create a mission

“Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This is the deepest thing that you can do. You know what makes people great as compared with others? It is their “Why”, people who have created a mission for themselves gives them a deeper meaning and undying reason to act and chase their dreams. Same goes for loving what you are doing, those who love their job have this mission, they have this sense of purpose on why they are doing it what they are doing.

Sometimes we are too focus on what our job has to offer to us that we forgot what we are contributing to our company or to our work. It makes a lot of fulfillment when you find yourself being part of a bigger purpose.

Final thoughts

This may sound like a different level or perspective from what we usually encounter, especially when it comes to passion. But I guess it holds true that if you want to love your job, you must be good at it.

I may not totally agree with everything that the book says but this gave me a different perspective on how I can do better and see our job differently.

How about you? How this idea affects you? Let me know your thoughts!

I have other some readings related that can help you:

1. Managing yourself: Turn the job you have into the job you want
2. Why 85% of people hate their jobs
3. Goals and Habits: Why your goals are just dreams
4. How to get back on track