Office politics and company transitions can often make it hard to remember why you loved your job in the first place. How can employees find career satisfaction without changing jobs or careers?

The problem often lies in our definition of a ‘good’ job. Many employees expect their jobs to constantly be thrilling, exciting, rewarding, profitable, and nothing but good times. Did you know? There is an ugly “E” word being used to describe American workers today: entitled. However, that entitled attitude actual stems from how we’ve been raised to approach work. Americans put so much emphasis on their careers as a way to define them as people (more than any other society in the world!) that it directly impacts our society’s ability to be happy in life. We are a highly educated society and have one of the highest standards of living in the world, yet we have a 70% job dissatisfaction rate!

Why? For most of us, a bad day on-the-job means a bad day all around. This stems from the fact that we expect our jobs to make us happy and satisfied in life overall – but that’s not a career’s primary purpose. A study by Harris Interactive showed more than 60% of Americans feel their job is their ‘career’ not just work. Our obsession with being able to answer the question, “What do you do for a living?” in a way we can be proud of, drives many people to over analyze and put too much emphasis on their careers. Career success as a way to gain respect is the American way. Yet, the pursuit of career success and finding the ‘perfect’ job as a way to feel good about themselves is actually costing Americans their happiness.

NOTE: For more information on the ‘entitlement’ attitude of Americans that is causing their job dissatisfaction, including statistics and additional concepts, I suggest, The Ugly “E” Word – Not Just for Gen Y.

What are some ways to rekindle the passion that originally drew you to the job in the beginning?

I teach clients how to create the work-life balance they claim they want, but don’t honestly know how to create. The secret is to start by cutting your career a break and focusing on the other key areas of your life. There are EIGHT key areas in life in total, and your career is just one of them. The other seven are:

• friends/family
• significant other/romance
• physical environment
• physical self
• mental self
• hobbies
• finances

The first step to finding satisfaction with your current job is to stop blaming it for all your problems in these other areas. We use our careers as the scapegoat for everything that is not right in our lives (inability to exercise and take of ourselves, inability to be a good parent or spouse, inability to have hobbies, inability to improve our finances, etc.) Instead of making your career the bad guy, take a step back and say, “How can I improve my happiness in the other areas of my life without having to change my job?”

When my clients learn how to be successful in the other areas of their life, regardless of how they feel about their career, they soon find that their job isn’t so bad. Being happy is a state of mind, it doesn’t matter what job you have, if you can train your brain to find the good and be proactive, you’ll find yourself unhappy at work.

Finally, you can’t rekindle the original passion for a job because (just like people), the job changes over time. It isn’t the same job you started out with, and you aren’t the same person who started in the job. You’ve gained skills and experience while your job has shifted and expanded.

How can I come to appreciate my job again?

While our initial passion for a job fizzles out, we CAN rekindle an appreciation for our jobs by knowing that the grass isn’t greener someplace else.

CONSIDER THESE FACTS:

New Job Search: The average job search for a $40K/year position is four months. You need to add a month of search for every $10K you want to earn above that. So, if you want to leave, get ready for some serious searching!

Job Jumping: Next, studies show that if you are the most successful you’ve ever been in your career at your current job (salary, recognition, seen as a key contributor to the company’s success, etc.), it is likely that if you jump jobs you won’t be as successful at your next employer. What makes people successful at a company is the knowledge they have of the company they work for, which includes the office politics, strengths and weaknesses of the firm. We are successful because we know how to leverage those things. Moving to a new job will force you to start over re-acquire that knowledge. Many times, people move to a new job and within a year, leave because they can’t accomplish what they were able to at their previous employer.

TRY THESE:

Take a Real Vacation: People have lots of vacation time, but never use it wisely. Structure a vacation that will let you really relax and not think about work. Proper decompressing helps us clear our brain of negativity and allows us to look at our career situation in a better light.

Learn How to Communicate Better: Most dissatisfaction on-the-job comes from not getting along with co-workers, managers, customers, etc. We don’t appreciate how others are speaking/acting on-the-job and it frustrates us to distraction. The truth is, as a culture, we are becoming less tolerant and more frustrated by people in general.

Social disconnection and Cultural ADD from the usage of technology as a way to be more efficient communicators is actually causing us to lose our ability to communicate face-to-face. And since 93% of communication is non-verbal (facial expressions, body language, hand gestures), we lose all that important information when we communicate by phone/e-mail. Which leads to a lot of mis-interpretation of people’s thoughts and feelings. If you want to love your job again, learn your Interaction Style on-the-job and the varying styles of those you work with. Then, find ways to leverage your communication skills so you can get along with co-workers better and not let what they say and do bother you as much.