HATE YOUR JOB? HERE’S ONE REASON WHY
When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.
Roy E. Disney
I know there could be a number of reasons why we start hating our jobs. Too much overtime, the boss is difficult, the pay is low, lame colleagues and the list could go on and on.
But there's a rarely mentioned reason.
When I used to work for a big travel agency, many years ago, and my job was to design programs in a new destination, I was in my element. I created and put together new offers, negotiated with hotel directors, or gave destination presentations to travel agency owners.
I was in love with my work! I woke up every day wanting to start and went home feeling really satisfied.
Then after a while, when the destination started to do well, the daily work just became business as usual. Every year the same hotels, same programs, same tasks. Most of my time was spent preparing rooming lists, doing the administration, calculating prices. There was hardly any creativity in my daily work, and no challenges.
I was in pain. I found this work boring, and I kept feeling, that I was wasting my expertise. My strengths are in talking to people, creating new products, developing business relationships, wooing new markets.
So, I told my boss, that I thought it was a waste for me to be creating spreadsheets, because my experience is not really necessary for this. It would be a win win for everyone, if I could spend most of my time doing what I had talent for.
Unfortunately, nothing changed over time, and I was becoming more and more unhappy. Over time I was transferred to another department, because they needed someone with experience, where the tasks I was given were even worse, so I quit.
It often turns out, that the reason why we dislike our job is because it’s not aligned to our core values, or priorities.
For me adventure, connections and innovation are on top of my priority list, and doing monotonous tasks is very far from these.
When my client says that family, self-realization and acknowledgement are the top priorities in her life, and her work requires her to do overtime regularly, it is not appreciated, and she has very little autonomy in her day-to-day work, she is probably not in the right place.
Another client who runs her own business, values integrity, likes to walk her talk, and delivers all tasks with great value, but has clients who regularly pay the bills with delays, this client seems to work for people, for whom integrity is not important. She might need to stop working with those clients.
And yet another client is most effective when he works from home, because then he doesn’t need to spend hours every day commuting. Thanks to this he is more relaxed and is happier to do what he’s been asked to do. However, the boss doesn’t let him work from home as many days as he would like to, even if it were possible technically. This client values peace a lot more than community.
One client, who works for a huge media company, says that her boss wants to control everything and because of this she is thinking of quitting. Not being able to use her own creativity, she is becoming more and more uncertain of her knowledge, has started to make mistakes, and doesn’t understand why. Therefore, her top values include autonomy and resourcefulness over security.
Interesting, right?
If you value honesty, then you probably won’t enjoy yourself at a workplace, where you need to bluff, or somehow change the facts. If quality is important to you, you will become more and more strained, when you see your colleagues arguing in front of the client and your boss doesn’t stop them.
International studies show, that workplace satisfaction depends, among other things, on how well the company is aligned to your core values, and whether the work you do allows you to use your most important strengths or not.
If you’re aware of what your own values are, then you’ll have a better understanding of what drives you, what inspires you, what makes you happy, and what you would like more of. When you build your life and lifestyle around your core values, your work and life will be a lot more satisfying and meaningful.
Some of these values and priorities may change over the years or become more important as we get to understand ourselves better. They can also change because of a change in our lifestyle. But most will stay with us all our lives.
Would you like to find out what your core values are?
Then please download the CORE VALUES list and go through the exercise.
One of my clients, who was becoming really worried 8 months after having lost his job, and not finding a new one, chose his core values as SECURITY, TEAMWORK and AUTHENTICITY.
When we made plans along these, about whom he should meet, and what kind of companies to contact, he found work within a short time, with a salary, that he wanted (SECURITY), a good team, and work that he was really experienced in. (AUTHENTICITY). There may have been some circumstances in this job, that were not ideal, but for that period of time, while his sense of security returned, this was perfect.
If you’ve completed this short exercise, I hope you will have more ideas about what kind of working environment you would feel comfortable with.
If you have questions about the topics on the website or you’d like to explore the possibilities of working together, THEN LET’S HAVE A CHAT!
