I have been fortunate enough to have had jobs throughout high school and college that I have absolutely loved with friendly coworkers, clear company goals, a great boss, exceptional on-the-job training and mentorships, etc. However, not all jobs have these aspects. I’ve had a few that I just didn’t enjoy the work that I was doing or the company I was working for. For those jobs, it was so hard to get myself out of bed every morning to go into the office. It felt like my days were dragging and I could see a noticeable difference in my mood. I would come home and feel tired and unmotivated just knowing that I had to go back to the same dull and repetitive job.
Most people will experience this sometime in their career. Maybe you work long, stressful hours, you don’t like your boss, or you aren’t in a position that you want to be in. You’re not alone!
Today, I will be sharing a few tips that have been extremely helpful to me when I found myself in jobs that I didn’t enjoy. Hopefully you’ll find these beneficial to you as well 🙂
First, List Out your Goals! Not goals for this particular job, but your career and long-term professional goals. Writing down your goals helps you visualize what you hope to achieve in a job or career and can help you get a jump start on achieving those. For example, I did an internship last summer in Milwaukee and didn’t particularly like the internship or the industry I was in. I found it extremely hard to get myself ready for a job I was less than thrilled about. But, a couple weeks into the internship, I was sitting at my desk and thought, what can I do right now that would benefit me after this internship? I knew I didn’t want to work in the current position I was in or for the company in general, but I did want to learn a few transferable skills that I could take with me to future jobs and could talk about in interviews. So, I wrote down ALL of my careers goals that I currently have, and what I could start doing at my current job that would help me achieve them!
Second, (And most important!!) Focus on achieving some of your short or long-term career goals at your current job. One of my goals at my internship was to learn 5 new skills on excel. Excel is a program that is frequently used in most jobs, so I figured learning some new tricks would be beneficial.
Some other ideas for goals you can set for yourself could be:
- Improve your Public Speaking
- Contribute more to team meetings
- Read about what is currently happening in your industry
- Learn how to read and analyze business reports
- Enhance your writing skills
- Write a weekly blog post/journal about what you have accomplished or learned at work
- Dress more professional
- Greet people in the hallway, etc.
Learning that new skill or working towards some goals will give you motivation throughout the work day and make you feel more productive, even working at a job you don’t enjoy.
There are so many things that you can learn at any job or certain skills you can improve upon. Take the time to list out your goals and see what you can start accomplishing now!
This tip goes for any job. Even if it’s a cashier position at a local retailer, there are still goals you can set for yourself. Maybe you want to work on having patience with difficult customers or take more time to inform customers about the products you’re selling. Maybe you want to learn more about the mission/values of the company. You can set goals for yourself at any job.
Third, I recommend writing down what you learned from your job. At my previous internship, I wrote down everything I learned about the company, my position, my responsibilities, etc! Every week I would take some time to think about what I was doing that I liked and didn’t like. This made me realize what I really wanted out of a job and out of my future career. Being in a job that you don’t enjoy truly does show you what you DO want out of a job! For me, I learned that I don’t want to be sitting at a desk or staring at a computer screen for the entire day. I didn’t want to be analyzing reports or just doing calculations. I needed to be interacting with people! Sometimes it takes working at a job you don’t enjoy to make you realize what you do enjoy.
If you currently are in a job that you aren’t loving, think about what goals you can set for yourself today that will help you accomplish your long-term career goals!
Have a wonderful week!!
XO
Cassie
