Hate Your Job? Here’s How To Love It

"Love is the greatest refreshment in life." - Pablo Picasso

How much love is there in your life?

You probably love your parents, your spouse/partner, your kids . . . but what else do you love?

Do you love any of your friends? Colleagues? Nature? A beautiful day? A good book?

How about work? Do you love it? Hate it? If work was a long spectrum from Totally Love to Uncomfortably Despise, where would you fall on that line? 

During one of my coaching sessions, we discussed this typical symptom of business. How can one move up that spectrum and better love what they do. Because if you love what you do:

• You do it better.
• You enjoy doing it.
• You are fulfilled doing it. Challenged.
• You learn.
• You grow.
• You have FUN.

So how do you love what you do? We first need to investigate why you don't love what you do. It's usually because of these four reasons:

1. It's boring or 'SOS' — you do the 'Same Old Stuff' every day. 
2. You hate the business, the people, the commute or the location.
3. You question or someone else questions your performance. You feel you are not fully qualified or someone is a severe critic.
4. It's not what you really want to do.

There are only three choices when it comes to work:

1. Endure. Stay and do nothing.
2. Change. Stay and change the game.
3. Leave. Get the heck out of there.

That's it. If you want to LOVE what you do, you can't choose #1 (endure). So if we take our model and apply it to our four reasons:

1. It's boring.

Change. Ask for more demanding/challenging work from your boss. Think of new ways to deliver to clients. Be inventive, take chances, use your imagination. Staying safe and fearful will only deliver more boredom. Trust me.

2. You hate the business, the people, the commute or the location.

Leave. Changing any of these items is difficult — unless you can relocate or telecommute — but I've found the best way to deal is to make a wholesale change to a different environment. But be careful — you might just jump from the fat into the fire.

3. You question or someone else questions your performance.

You. Stop doing that. When we question our performance, it's usually based on a fear of forgetting something critical. Most of the time, we are correct and don't have to worry. Start using a checklist or redundancies to solve this problem.

Them. Ask them for constructive feedback rather than being just a critic. Ask them to help you do your job better. Ask others (who you feel are top performers) for insight and advice. 

Otherwise, leave.