Work has its way of making even the most passionate of us tired. Daily routine can grind us down, and as time progresses, we often find ourselves simply falling out of love with our work.
See Also: 5 Reasons Why Passion for Work Isn’t Always Good
For those of us who are lucky enough to be doing something we love time might progress more slowly, but eventually it catches up with us and the excitement we had for our work dies out. I suppose that if you wait it out, this phase will come to pass, but when it comes to work you simply can’t sit idly by while your love for work turns into hatred.
The more miserable you become at work, the more your work suffers, and the more your work suffers, the more your career suffers. Before you know it you may find yourself out of a job, but don’t fret because this is easy to avoid. All you need is to fall back in love with your job, find your passion and rekindle your creativity.
Here are a few tips to help you on your way:
1. Envision Happiness
Sometimes all we need to make ourselves happy is to think about what would make us happy. So pour yourself a glass of wine –not at work obviously- light a few candles and think of what happiness means to you in terms of work. Does it mean that you need to have a new challenge? Try and think of ways you can challenge yourself at work. Can you talk to your boss about it? Could they maybe reassign a few projects over to you? If that wouldn’t work, think about what you can do to challenge yourself. Maybe you can take some initiative when it comes to promoting your company. More often than not all we really need is to feel responsible for something.
2. Write Everything Down
During your alcohol induced meditation, you might make some great observations about your work life. Take a piece of paper and separate it into two columns, what makes you happy and what makes you unhappy. For example, does chatting to Rita by the water-cooler make you happy or unhappy? The first step is to write everything down in the two columns. The next step is to ask yourself why. Why does chatting to Rita make you unhappy for example? Is she a negative person and is that affecting you? Try to avoid her as often as possible then. The reason for going through this process is to realize what you like and dislike at work. This way you can try and avoid all of the things that are making you miserable at work and invest in the things that are making you happy.
3. Learn a New Skill
If your unhappiness is more to do with your actual work, than the work environment you need to find ways that can make you passionate about your work again. Learning a new skill is always a good idea as it’s always challenging. If you’ve been in the industry for too long, it’s certain that there are new things you can learn, so invest in an evening course and try to transfer that knowledge in your daily work. You’ll find that looking at your work from a different perspective will make you passionate again.
4. Reclaim Your Life
Sometimes the reason we come to hate our work is because we never get the chance to unwind. We take work home with us; we check our work email even when we are at home, and we never stop thinking about work. If that’s what’s been happening to you, then you have no work life balance. Tell yourself –again and again if you must- that work finishes the moment you exit your office’s door, so leave everything work related there. Find things you enjoy doing and start doing them in your spare time. You can even take a wine tasting course now.
5. Be Honest With Yourself
We tend to think of our work as animated thing that can let us down, but the fact is that your work is what you make of it. So rather than thinking of how your job has let you down, think of how you’ve been letting your work down. Go for a trip down memory lane and find when was the moment that you started disliking your job. Soul-searching is difficult and hard on us, but if you want to find your love for your work, you need to understand why you are feeling the way that you are.
See Also: Top 10 Motivational Career Quotes
Finding your passion for your work is not difficult, you just need to be determined.
Have you ever fallen out of love with your work? How did you fall back in love with it? Share with us in the comment section below.
