Once, a friend of mine expressed his concerns over his job; he had no interest in working anymore and is completely tired of working for nothing. He didn’t get a promotion for the last five years and was getting peanuts in return. He asked me if I have any advice for him.
I realized I had been through this dilemma several times in the past. I tried to help my friend by evaluating whether he loves his job and what steps he could take to give it a try. The results were encouraging, and hence I would like to share the thoughts here.
Answer five simple questions to find out whether you love your job:
How is your morning – Do your mornings excite you about what you do? Are you excited to reach the office to discover and solve new problems or create something useful or improve something existing?
How is your afternoon – Do your afternoons continue to excite you about what you are doing? Are you feeling tired, or you still excited about what you are doing? Are you getting a sense of achievement or just killing time?
How is your evening – Do your evenings make you feel satisfied with what you did in a day? Are you feeling excited about leaving the office or worry about coming to the office again tomorrow? Or, are you feeling satisfied with the day you just spent – problems solved, solutions found, new things are up, and you are making progress.
How are your late evenings and weekends? Is your late evening and weekend dedicated to personal pleasure and time? Do you still work after coming back home? Do you bring your office work into your home? Or, do you spend time with your family, for your interests, enjoy your personal time, or even simply cooking?
Do you know what you are working for? We need to realize what drives us to drive the car to the workplace. Are you just working to pay your bills? Or, you are earning by pursuing your hobbies or the duties or the job you love to do? One of my friends once said – “I like the job of being a vet. I love the cuties who can’t speak out their pain. I treat them and love them as my kids. I feel a sense of achievement when I see a puppy walking in again after recovering from an injured leg. I like to see the smile on their faces that no one else can see. I love my job and don’t want to retire ever”. Paying bills is a need, but we need to know what drives or motivates us. If we are not helping others in some way by our knowledge, experience, or skills, then we are working for money (to pay the bills only) and not making money work for us.
If a minimum of two of your responses is NO, then you don’t seem to be happy with your job or have no clue what you are doing. But that does not mean you can’t love your job ever. It means you are not just happy right now. What possible actions you can take to make a difference? The answer could be Step-out and not necessarily Move-out.
Five simple steps (or ways) to STEP-OUT:
Clarity on Roles and Responsibilities: Do you know your exact roles and responsibilities? What are you expected to do at work? Also, do you know what roles others are playing with whom you are working daily? You need to know what exactly is expected from you. Sometimes, we think that we know what is expected from us, but later we may figure out that we are doing someone else’s job by ignoring our own. Please make sure you understand what your job duties are and what are not. You can only add value or make a shift or step-out once you understand what is expected from you and others around you.
Going the extra mile: What other activities can you commit to on top of your regular activities? You may think you already have enough, and you are right. The fact is – you have enough focus on something that you are not completely happy with. As I said, all these steps are worth trying. Try something new or extra, like – nominating yourself in the recruitment panel, start working on other areas not directly related to your daily routine, or help someone else get his/her work done. Or, volunteer to assist your boss in generating some reports. You can also start sending appreciation emails every day to at least one colleague of yours for anything good he/she did on the job or for you. Just go the extra mile – start doing something more as well on top of your daily responsibilities.
Learning at least one new item every day: Can you make sure to learn at least one new thing/topic every day? Have a notebook with you or use a Notes app on your smartphone or maintain a spreadsheet to note what you learned today. You can have a date column and a few words or lines that you learned. You can note very simple to complex learning items like how many branches your office has that you did not know till now, your colleague’s interests, new technologies in the market, new financial tools, new programming language, or simply speaking few words or “Thank You” in French or Spanish. Your mind will start expecting something new every day; this will unfold the possibilities you never noticed before.
Shout out loud (for help): We all need help at some point in life, and there is nothing wrong with asking for help. But asking for help should be followed by several individual attempts; asking for help without even trying makes us learn nothing. Identify friends or colleagues you can trust, share your challenges, and then ask for help.
Go different: We can’t expect different results doing the same thing over and over again. We have to change the pattern, and it could be a tiny change. I always believe in the idea of a “one-degree” shift. This idea states that if you change a rocket’s trajectory by just one degree, then you may land on a completely different planet (or may not land anywhere at all). Look for new tools or strategies to do your work or find better ways to complete a task and how others are doing a particular task. So, we need to try a “one-degree” shift, and it is worth trying.
When I was in Mumbai, there used to be a sandwich shop owner who was different from others around. He used to give a ‘Thank You’ note to everyone and request his customers to keep that note until next time. Customers used to get freebies and discounts by showing the Thank You note. It was a small gesture, but he made a difference, and almost everyone started to buy from him. It was just a note in his customers’ pockets or purses all day long, but it made a huge impact silently. He was a nice and humble man; people liked that too.
Always explore what can be done differently and how to go that extra mile. Covering the extra mile uncovers whole new opportunities to develop special skills. We all are replaceable unless we create our brand.
People often say he is a good person; she is a bright child, or he is brilliant – these are the personal brandings you can create for yourself by one-degree shifts and stepping out of your inertia.
We all want to Step Up in our lives to get promoted, to earn higher salaries, to take higher responsibilities, or to feel more good about ourselves. We often think the problem exists outside like – the job, salary, work pressure, cunning colleagues, or an idiot boss, but rarely do we introspect.
Stepping up is like building more muscle mass, and it is possible if you Step (work) out.
