What to Do When You Are Working a Job That You Hate
Young professionals are sometimes in a position where they are unhappy at work, feeling stuck, and generally not engaged with their work. When you feel stuck in a job, you hate it can be overwhelming and affect your work performance, making you hate your job even more. It can also harm our relationships with our family, friends, or significant others. If you find yourself in a job that you hate, you must take a proactive approach to improve your situation. It is a problem that needs correcting as quickly as possible. Do not do things you hate. Here are some clear next steps you can take to make sure you do not let your distain for your current position in life to spiral out of control and leave you worse off then you were before.
Audit your work
Are you working as effectively as you can in your current position? You may hate your job because you are working the wrong way. Audit your time at work and try to see how you are allocating your time. Try and understand what you do with all of your time. We all have the same amount of minutes in the day and week; what insights can you gain from a good audit? Once you have a better understanding of you you use your time; you can really start to look at the work tasks that are causing some of your unhappiness and how much time you are allocating to them. What are the 20% of things that are causing 80% of your stress?
Of those tasks, what can you do to make them more manageable or enjoyable. We all have tasks that we hate, that is just the nature of the work, but what are you doing to prevent those tasks from consuming you in your role. Setting up different workflows for these tasks may prevent them from consuming your entire day. Perhaps you can batch these tasks and condense them on to one day, or to only certain parts of your day.
Burnout is on the rise, and auditing how you spend your time at work can be a preventive measure you can take before burnout worsens. Once you have a better understanding of your work and the exact things about your position that make you hate your job, it's time to confront those specific duties and responsibilities. Are they things that are a core function of your position? If so, it's probably time to find a new role. Are they things that can be automated, delegated, or eliminated?
Take Action
Once you have audited your time, duties, and responsibilities, it's time to clarify what you want next. Do you want to find a new job, or did the time you spent auditing your time and workflows improve your situation?
You may need to have a conversation with your boss about ways to make the things you hate more manageable. Be tactful with the conversation. Come prepared with some concrete ways things can be improved and how it will improve the organization for the better in the long run. Think like the business owner, how can you improved things in the business.
If you want to find a new position, the time that you spent auditing your position will help you in your job search and give you understand of what to look for in your next position, and avoid putting yourself in a role where some of the same problems are going to arise. You want to walk away with a clear understanding of your ideal job so that you know what to look for in your job search; what is your next ideal position?
If you decide that a new position is the best path forward, leave your job a little be every day. Most of you are probably not in a position where you can just quit your job. However, If you can and have the means, there is nothing wrong with walking away from a situation that is not a good fit for you. Life is too short to work a job that you hate. If you are going to stay, you must continue to perform in your current job to the best of your ability. You want to leave on good terms and not burn in any bridges. If you have the option, I will avoid adding any new responsibilities to your plate at work unless that new responsibility will help your job search and give you new skills to use in your next ideal position?
Ask for help
Seek out the help of trusted advisors, coaches, mentors and colleagues at work. You need to have someone you can trust to talk through what’s going on at work. This can help prevent you from feeling isolated, and less anxious about work. Seek out those people who can help you improve your work or help you find your next job. Talking about the problems you are having will help you process your emotions. Talking to someone can help you work through some of these emotions you’re feeling and prevent things from snowballing out of control. Coaches and mentors can help you look at your work from a different lease and help you improve your workflows, help you develop as a professional so that your work becomes easier, or give you some helpful tools that can make your work more manageable.
When you hate your job, you need to take some concrete next steps to improve your work situation and clarify what you want next. Doing so will prevent burnout and prevent your work from affecting your personal relationships. This can be mentally exhausting and feel overwhelming, but you need to take control of your life.