WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK AT YOUR JOB
Do you feel stuck at your job? You feel that maybe the job you currently have is not the one that suits you, you just need it to pay the bills, or actually just have an occupation, especially these hard moments of the confinement that you might even consider yourself lucky that you actually have a job that you must be grateful just having something to do!
Start working and evaluating the situations that you are currently going through. The more you take the time to actually access the situation in a neutral way, the more balanced you will be and also see solutions that you might not have thought of. If you are cought up in your thoughts you maybe have a negative attitude through months or even years of unmotivated work or complains about it.
So what could you actually do when you are feeling stuck in some aspects of your current job?
1. Gain some clarity
- You can start by finding out what drove you to this job in the first place, what where your expectations?
- What did you learn from it so far, this can be related to skills directly related to your job description, or the soft skills you managed to develop?
- What is there still to learn in this job, in which areas do you think that you can still evolve, find some challenges, what can you learn?
- How did this job contribute in your general life satisfaction?
- What are the things you appreciate in your current jobs and what would be your non negotiables for any job you have in the future?
Why are these questions going to help you in getting some clarity on where you are right now?
We humans are quite bad at predicting how happy things will make us, or how long that happiness will last. For example, having a job at a multinational company when you are 25 and getting promoted in a manager position when you are 30 might seem like you are living the dream! Nevertheless, after you have actually achieved that, and gotten all the glory and conveniences that come with it, you end up undervaluing it, being way less happy and fulfilled than you actually think you would be. This is normal, because of the projection bias, our tendency to project our current preferences onto a future event. And not only that means we judge a future situation on current preferences, we also judge it on current wishes and dreams; and I hate break the news (actually I love) that our wishes and wants in life evolve as we do!
So take the time to answer these questions and actually reflect upon your current job as if it was your last summer’w vacations, and you are making a complete review of it. How did you think it would be, how it actually was and how you can adapt what you learned for enjoying more this year’s vacations.
2. Try to better your job in simple ways
So think of ways in which you can you make the situation better.
- Can you go after new projects that make you feel more inspired?
- Can you ask for some help on your current project with a colleague that you enjoy working with?
- Can you make office (or home office time) more pleasant? Think of maybe listening to your favorite music while working, making your desk or office space a bit more organized or inspiring?
- How can you create more balance in your work and your life? How can you impose your limits, especially if you are working from home? In normal situations, Could you for example work from home once a week? Can you arrange more flexible work conditions, some extra vacations?
3. Live by your values
In every moment of our lives and every field of it, if we do not live aligned with our values our existence is manifesting that we are not happy, satisfied and we need to find what we value. So how can you understand your values? Ask yourself these questions:
- What motivates you?
- What kind of culture do you want to work in?
- What things, settings or resources are necessary for you to do your best work?
- What qualities do you wish to develop in yourself professionally?
- What are your future career goals? What qualities do you need to develop to achieve them?
I am listing hereby some of the most common work related values, so that you can prioritize the ones that you think correspond to your ethic
- Acceptance
- Achievement
- Adventure
- Bravery
- Community
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Family
- Friendships
- Growth
- Happiness
- Hard work
- Honesty
- Humility
- Ingenuity
- Innovation
- Integrity
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Open communication
- Optimism
- Patience
- Peace
- Popularity
- Power
- Quality
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Spirituality
- Stability
- Success
- Tenacity
- Time management
- Wealth
- Wisdom
- Work/life balance
I suggest that you take the time and choose the top 3 that will help you better understand the career you are willing to invest on.
I understand that in some cases some values might be conflicting; you might feel for example your need for stability cannot be combined with your need for freedom. Whenever you feel that, see if there is a living example that disprooves this theory.
If you cannot, then try to see how you favor one value over the other using your gut feeling.
What do you feel like you most need at this present moment? When I say feel, I am not referring just to an emotion that comes and goes, but a deeper understanding of your gut feeling, f what your instict tells you about this matter?
4. Develop your skills
Have you thought what skills would help you evolve as a professional?
There are two types of skills, soft and hard. Soft skills relate more to emotional intelligence and are natural abilities that help us interact well with others. They are useful across all industries and job types. Hard skills, on the other hand, are usually job-specific skills that are learned through education or training.
Think that you can invest some time on things that will always follow you, so that you are not feeling that you are wasting time and effort on a job that you anyways don’t feel like you will be doing forever!
You can find a list of the hard skills you can develop by looking on job descriptions that fit to the job you would like to apply to and that you haven’t currently developed at all, or at the required level.
Furthermore, think of the soft skills that could help you have a better human experience at the work space. According to Indeed’s Director of Recruiting, Mike Steinerd, (Indeed is a worldwide employment-related search engine for job listings) these are the most desired skills:
- Being a team player – How can you practice more being not only being cooperative, but also displaying strong leadership skills?
- Flexibility – how can you demonstrate that you can adapt to any situation and that you are someone dependable no matter the circumstance? I believe this is extremely topical nowadays.
- Effective communication – How can you improve the way you articulate yourself well, be a better listener or learn more about how to use and read body language.
- Problem-solving and resourcefulness – What attitude do you have towards unexpected issues that inevitably arise and how can you improve that?
- Accepting feedback – How do you react to feedback and how do you apply it for your professional growth?
- Confidence– Do you feel confident and capable? How can you develop that?
- Creative thinking – How can you come up with unique solutions or alternatives to current problems and situations?
Think of ways you can develop these skills, either take up a new activity, an online course, read specific books on the subjects that interest you.
5. Remind yourself that where there is a will there is a way!
In order to do that see all the relative aspects:
Finances: How much money do you need to safe in order to be more secure for a career transition?
Practicalities: Who should be informed that you need to make an exit plan? Will you need some further education to prepare to switch to another job, or field?
Psychology: How do you want to feel when you are ready to make a change? How can you empower yourself to do this transition?
I can give you an example of my transition from being an employee to working independently. I took the time to form myself on the subject I was interested even before I started thinking that I will actually make a career change. I started gaining skills, by attending seminar and signing up on online courses on the subject I was interested, NLP and completing an accredited program on Life Coaching. I had saved some money in order to be able to support a period without a stable income. I practiced by helping out friends on the subjects that I would cover as a new coach. I volunteered for three months so that I have the time to prepare my material, website, strategy and branding and also cover my everyday expenses, in addition to the fact that I had the chance to develop interpersonal skills like handling workshops and manage a project. Anyways, this was my story.
What do you want your story to be like?