How to Stay Motivated When You Hate Your Job? Tip 1

How can you stay focussed and motivated when you really hate your job? How do you manage work stress?

One of the consequences of the economic recession is less movement in the job markets. People are staying put for fear of  ‘last in, first out syndrome’. And of course, there are fewer jobs out there and more competition for those that are around.

So how do you keep your motivation going? How do you drag yourself out of bed every morning to do a job that you hate? It’s not easy and if you are in this position you have my sympathies. It’s horrid.

Self Pity

But don’t go too far down the self pity route! At least you do have a job and aren’t reliant on benefits. You’re still in the world of work. So my first tip is:

MANAGE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT WORK

If you’ve ever done any of my training, read my articles or my book, (When Work isn’t Working) you’ll know that I firmly believe we need to take control of our feelings, and that we CAN take control of our feelings even when it feels like pretty much everything else is outside of our control!

If you start each day giving yourself a really negative message, your day is only going to get worse. You are what you think. If you think devalued and worthless thoughts about your work it comes across and you feel worse. Whatever else is happening, your thoughts are your own (‘they‘ can’t make you feel anything-honestly!). Decide now to give yourself a positive message every morning that will help you through this period of your life, not one that will bring you down. (Check this out for some confidence boosting tips)

Your Action Points

• Identify your automatic negative thoughts about your work.

• Notice how often you speak to yourself about work in an unhelpful way

• Notice how this makes you feel. Does it make you feel better or worse (I’m not talking about sharing a moan with a pal, that can be therapeutic!)

• How can you change your negative internal mail into something that will help you through this period of your life?

• Try replacing all negative thoughts with positive ones for one week. What difference has this made to your week?

This is the first in a series of tips to help you through difficult times; if you have found it helpful you might like to receive my newsletter -just sign up in the blue box opposite the picture. And please do share this with others and add your own tips and hints! It’s great to get your comments!

Change – How To Survive Tip 4

What is your attitude to change? Can you change your attitude to change….?

Before you can do the latter you need to be clear about what you think. Ponder these questions:

Change Questions

• How do you feel about change?

• Do you regularly initiate new things, have new thoughts on old subjects?

• What’s your instinctive reaction when you hear something is changing?

• How do you feel when you visit an old haunt where all has changed?

• How do you feel if the office furniture gets moved?

• What things in your life do you believe to be sacrosanct i.e. must never be tampered with?

• What things can you let go off easily?

• What changes can you see on your horizon over next 6 months?

• How does thinking about future changes that make you feel?

Now write a paragraph to yourself describing how you feel about change- it’s just for your eyes! Did anything surprise you?What changes (if any) would you like to make in your response to change?

This is part of a series on managing change. If you want to be certain of getting every post you can sign up for them simply by putting your email address in box at top of this page. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time.