Disappointed With Your Current Career?

You can find Kathy over at her website, kathybrunner.com. This post was initially published there. 

I’m going to start off with something personal. Over the last few weeks, I have found myself feeling less than great. I’d wake up every morning with ailments varying from headaches to nosebleeds. I tried whatever over-the-counter and natural remedies I could think of. I would feel better for a day or two and then it would start all over again. For weeks, I really just felt blah. Finally I caved and made an appointment with a doctor who diagnosed a severe bacterial sinus infection and ended up prescribing what I needed to help me feel better right away – nearly instantly.

The sad thing is I wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on all those things that didn’t work. And when I was feeling poorly, I wasn’t working at my best either. I was so sure I could shake it on my own, but the truth is in 40 minutes the doctor had me on a path to feeling better that I hadn’t been able to find on my own over several weeks.

I can’t help but realize how often people do that in their careers, as well. One of my recent clients described her career blah this way:

“I should be really happy and grateful. I have a great husband, wonderful friends and a new healthy little boy, but I find myself crying at the end of everyday because I dread going to my job. It just sucks all the happiness out of my soul. I just feel down all the time. My job is really ruining my life.”

She’s not the first person who has owned up to feeling she should just tolerate her job because, well, because the rest of her life is really quite wonderful.

We have a strange notion about what we will put up with when it comes to our jobs. Because we rely on our careers to pay the bills, we somehow believe we should just buck up and stick with it no matter how out of sync it feels to us. But the truth is that sticking with something that sucks the happiness out of our soul often will affect the rest of our lives as well. Before we know it, like a string of dominoes, the disappointment or disillusionment we feel in our work just spills over into every aspect of our existence.

Recently in a workshop, one participant confessed that she felt so anxious and irrelevant at her position that she had caused herself some health issues from taking various medications to help her get through her day. Obviously her job was ruining a great deal of her life no matter how much money she was making.

So, are you facing the career blahs? Do you feel less than enthused about the role you play or frustrated waiting for opportunities that never come? Do you try to self medicate and tweak things here and there? And maybe your career improves a bit – but in the end do you realize you are drowning in a pool of frustration, lacking a feeling, purpose or ambition for what you do?

Had I gone to the doctor several weeks ago, I would not have wasted several weeks feeling poorly and without energy or focus.

Are you doing the same thing? Do you continue to try self remedies which offer very temporary, if any, relief? Have you tolerated the career blahs for so long you can’t remember when you had the energy or enthusiasm to feel excited about putting time in on your job?

The problem with accepting the blahs is truly one of stubbornness and pride. We believe we can fix our problems and that we don’t need help to get better.

Of course we need to pay the bills, but the price we pay should never be with parts of our lives we can never get back.

What do your own career blahs look like and how long have you been dealing with them without treatment?

Ready to finally ditch your career blahs for career bliss? Schedule a Strategy Call to help you put the steps in place to really move from day job to dream job.