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I remember driving to the office one morning and suddenly feeling an overwhelming desire to call in sick, turn the car in the opposite direction and head for a day of aimless wandering and unexpected adventure. Then the little voice inside my head said, “What are you crazy? You can’t just play hooky like some 12 year old. You have responsibilities and deadlines and a family depending on a paycheck.”
With a deep sigh, I drove to the office with a sense of regret that I no longer had the carefree choices that I had in my youth. And, then the realization hit me that after 10 years with the same company, I had become bored with my role as a Manager. I seemed to spend most of my time listening to problems and trying to find solutions, intermingled with handling the usual workload.
At some stage in everyone’s career, they’ll probably experience some degree of boredom in what they’re doing. When that happens, a warning bell should go off in your head, stop everything and say to yourself, “What am I proactively going to do to change this situation?”
Our natural tendencies are to blame someone else for what we’re feeling. Usually that someone else is either the corporate environment or our immediate boss.
So we often just keep doing what we’ve been doing hoping that our feelings of boredom and dissatisfaction will magically disappear or someone else will provide the answer to put the excitement back into our daily work life.
Guess what? You could be waiting a long time.
Although I don’t profess to have all of the answers, I offer the following advice if you find yourself in this predicament.
1. Recognize the negativity of being bored. If you consciously acknowledge the feeling of boredom and the resistance it plays to your job satisfaction, you’re more likely to do something about it.
2. Accept total responsibility for your feelings. While blaming someone else for what you’re feeling is easy, you are the one that has allowed your situation to impact your level of feelings.
3. Look at the impact on your TOTAL life. No doubt the boredom has impacted not only your professional life but your personal life as well. Try and identify the exact rub-offs that job boredom is playing in other areas.
4. Take positive steps to change the situation. If you remember the excitement and anticipation with new career changes, it’s easier to focus on what you need to do to replicate those situations. At this phase, you have several choices:
a. Talk yourself into a new attitude - While I was happy overall with my job, I realized that I’d been working a lot of overtime on some major projects and was simply tired. The old joke about “mental health days” is a valid consideration. Maybe you need a few days off, or need to structure that lunchtime that you’ve been working to take a walk or have lunch with friends. Find a new perspective.
b. Try to restructure your job role or career style – Now could be a perfect time to try a different management style or ask for additional or different responsibilities. New challenges or ways of doing things can add the extra interest you need.
c. Use the opportunity to learn something new. Remember that certification course you’ve been meaning to do or the photography class you’ve had on your list for years. It doesn’t matter whether the learning is for business or personal, the mere act of learning will help alleviate the feeling that nothing changes.
d. Identify the steps you need to take to make a complete change. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to accept that you need to move on professionally. Before doing so, ask yourself if this realization is based on recurring boredom patterns in your life or a valid need. If after examining all of the pros and cons, you think that is the best answer, then identify the steps you need to effect the change in a timely and efficient manner. Update your resume and identify your best references. Write a description of what the ideal job looks like and the organization style that fits your personality and skill set. Then identify those companies that you should target for a career move.
If you’ve reached this stage, you need to recognize that looking for new employment can be disruptive and time consuming. Work out in your own mind how you’ll continue being productive with your current employer while seeking new opportunities. Don’t abandon or slack off on the responsibilities that you have to the organization paying you because your mind set says that you’re a short timer there.
While we all know the necessity of a positive outlook on our health, family and happiness, it’s easy to let job boredom slowly infiltrate our life. Recognizing that fact and doing something about it can mean better things for you and those around you. What have you got to lose?
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