You Are Wasting Your Life
A reader wrote in the comment section of an article “On Sunday night, I get a sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach because tomorrow I have to go to work.” This comment really stuck with me.
To think about work in that way is literally wasting your life. Going to a job you hate is totally necessary and it is bad for your health, family and happiness. The working week is not supposed to be designed in a way where you battle your way through it to collect a pay cheque at the end.
You may struggle in your work, but it’s supposed to be for a reason. What makes you want to struggle?
If there is no meaning in your work, it will eventually consume you. I’ve been there. Work consumed me and left me with an ugly mental illness that nobody could see — not even me.
If work makes you feel sick, causes you ginormous amounts of stress that never stop and you are unhappy, it’s time to stop wasting your life!
You don’t get to do this again
You only get to work out your career once.
Why suffer unnecessarily when there are so many careers you could choose that feel like a beautiful dream when you imagine yourself on Monday morning catching up with colleagues who feel similar to friends?
Work is not supposed to be dull. You are supposed to enjoy what you do for a living and there are plenty of people who do. Unfortunately, the majority of people hate their jobs, which is the reason for this article.
Maybe it’s you, not your job
Something I learned through hating my own career at one point was that it was me that was the problem, not the job. Until you work on yourself, you may continue to be the catalyst for everything that is wrong in your career.
Selfishness, ego, arrogance and insecurity mask themselves as an unhappy career that appears to have been created by outside circumstances.
The truth is that it’s your inner world that needs fixing.
When you show up as selfless, respecting of others and with plenty of humility, things start to change. People treat you differently; customers become easier to deal with; new ideas find their way to your desk; leaders who you didn’t know before step into your career and give you opportunities.
You may be wasting your life because of who you are.
Work makes up most of your life
Plot out your career on a graph. Five days per week for a minimum of eight hours a day is a very big chunk of your life. Why would you trade all that time to be unhappy?
The biggest thing you can fix in your life is the work you do. It occupies so much of your time and when you get it right, all the other areas of your life improve too.
Redefine your career.
- What work do you like doing?
- Who do you like working with?
- What company values do you align with?
- What product/service helps you feel like you’re solving a real problem?
These are the questions that will lead you to the career that doesn’t make you waste your life on BS work that makes Sunday feel similar to cardiac arrest.
When you love your job you are more creative, happier and productive
That has been my experience and it’s backed up by so many studies in this field.
Creativity cannot foster when you hate your work. Yet, creativity is what will help you progress faster and have the chance to be a leader at work.
You can’t be happy when you hate your work. No matter how many fake smiles you try to give while walking down the hallway at work, you can’t fool yourself. Happiness at work comes from fulfillment and that occurs when you do something you feel born to do.
Actually doing the work and being productive — rather than waste time gossiping, in pointless meetings, and surfing the web — can’t happen when the idea of work in your mind is associated with negative feelings. You’ll look for distractions to immerse yourself in rather than doing your work — all because deep down you don’t love what you’re doing.
Lack of productivity leads to under-performance, redundancies and maybe even the possibility of being fired.
Stress and overworking
If you are forced to do these two things, you are wasting your life. A bit of stress here and there, or a few long days is fine — what I’m talking about is a constant routine of long hours and huge amounts of stress.
Stress and overworking are wasting your precious life.
When you work too many hours, you miss your family. When you overwork, you miss out on your hobbies and seeing friends.
When you overwork, you don’t allow your mind blank space to do nothing and revitalize.
Dealing with huge amounts of stress is even worse than overworking. Stress every day is toxic for your body and makes you physically sick. You can’t love the work you do if all you ever feel is stress.
No more delaying the inevitable
Pushing through doing work you hate, to eventually be able to feel some sort of happiness in the future, is a lie.
You may never arrive in the future where you get to be happy. All you can do is be happy right now. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
If your work sucks, it’s time for action. Not tomorrow, not next month or next year; right now. You have options such as: quit your job, find another job, start a business, take some time off, make your thoughts known and see if there is a way to change things — there is a solution if you become obsessed with finding one.
Every minute you delay finding work you enjoy, that makes you look forward to going to work, is another minute of your life that you are wasting. If you are not careful, you will waste most of your life and that will make you have regrets.
Work can be enjoyable. You can do work you love.
Start right now in changing your circumstances so you can stop wasting your life at work.