Sick of your job? Feel trapped? Fantasize about walking in to your bosses office and declaring emphatically “I quit!”?
Don’t let negative thoughts and emotional trappings derail a career, wrote Pat Olsen of Harvard Business Review in his post “How to Survive in an Unhappy Workplace. Find ways to make the job work for you while you discover your next move and develop an action plan, ” he said. Some people do not match well with their jobs, but rationalization tends to get in the way and rarely do employees look at themselves as part of the problem, advised Joe Mosca, a professor of organizational behavior at Monmouth University, in the same blog.
The advice from experts is to deal with unhappiness head on, develop a new plan of action and find something positive about your work (however tiny it may be) to keep you going until your plan becomes a reality.
China Gorman, chief global member engagement officer of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reminds workers that during a recession or slow recovery, people at all levels experience the pain. Such an economic climate makes it more difficult to leave a job, but it doesn’t mean you should feel stuck. Erickson advises that you “Accept that this job is not where you want to be, even if you can’t make a change today. But begin taking steps to change things.” McCarthy [clinical psychologist Catherine McCarthy of The Energy Project] seconds this advice. “Practice radical acceptance,” she says. “Tell yourself, ‘This is where I am, this is where I’m going to be for a certain amount of time.’ You have more control over how you think than you realize.” Understand what you’re feeling, and that if you show up to work irritated, it affects your performance.
(Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr cc 3.0)
More career advice:
- Your Need for a Job Won’t Get You One
- How to Customize Your Resume to the Job Listing
- Offer Employers a Plan to Make Money or Save Money
- The Power of Employment References and Job Referrals
- 7 Interview Questions to Uncover Corporate Culture
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