Something is drastically wrong when we keep producing workers who hate their job. I’m particularly concerned with mid-lifers who have put twenty or more years into a career only to realize it was never for them. They’ve ended up with a career that doesn’t satisfy their longing for something greater, more self-expressive, and rewarding—financially and spiritually.
A recent study conducted by market-research company The Conference Board, found that a growing number of us are unhappy with our jobs. The picture gets worse because the decline has increased for the last two decades. Less than half of all Americans today are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61% twenty years ago. And, as if that weren’t enough, the younger members of our workforce are the least satisfied, with only 39% of workers under age 25 reporting liking their job.
Are you in there?
If you see work as a curse, something you just have to put up with because of your addiction to food and the need for shelter, then please feel free to go about your business. This blog is probably not the place for you. But if you believe that your work can be a passionate expression of who you are and what you were put here to do, then bookmark this blog, put it on your Google Reader list, or subscribe via RSS—whichever you prefer.
In each of us there is a calling, something that invites us to stand out and make the world take notice. We were born with it. The problem is it usually gets hammered out of us before we get to our productive years. By then we’re putting the kids through college, trying to retire the mortgage, and slogging through the corporate bull. Calling? Yeah right! Isn’t that for spiritual types anyway?
Part of the dissatisfaction with our work results from employers not caring for their employees. With what we’ve seen over the past few years in the devaluation of our 401k’s and mismanaged pension funds, it’s time to wake up and start handling these things ourselves. Many are taking to planning their own careers. That’s a positive trend. But that job satisfaction statistic would still be staring us in the face if we only managed the financial side of the equation. A recent Monster.com job survey showed that compensation was not the number one concern for most seeking new jobs; career growth opportunities, flexible working conditions, and conducive work environment were more important. With all the current career choice methods available we’re still not affecting much in the realm of job satisfaction or in finding out what it is we really want to do with ourselves from 9 to 5. There’s definitely a piece missing in the process.
Another part of the dissatisfaction may come from having charged out too quickly in our younger days on a path that looked convenient, profitable, and safe. It wasn’t necessarily a path the we were passionate about, just the one that was.
But we were passionate about a lot of things back then. That’s why we ran around and did crazy stuff that scared the hell out of our parents. The problem was we were told that you can’t make any money from, say, skateboarding (a 5+ billon dollar industry in 2004).
So what do we do now? Now that we’re a quarter to halfway through the process of completing a career we don’t like…feeling like we’ve missed out on something big…something that could have been more fulfilling.
We have two options We can continue down the same path, leaving the world largely unchanged around us, retire and play golf. Or we can reevaluate how far we’ve come, what we’ve learned, and tune in to what our passions might be saying. We can clarify what we think we might be called to and begin to put plans in motion that will help us arrive at where we always thought we should be. It’s never been easier to do this than now. (note: I didn’t say it would be easy, just never easier than now) With all the technological tools and psychological understanding we have before us there is virtually nothing standing in the way of our accomplishing something extraordinary through our work.
Ask yourself these questions: Am I doing the work I feel called to? Is this my idea of a career, or someone else’s? What am I really passionate about? Answer these questions and start a process that builds a vision in you for your preferred future. One that rocks you and the world around you. The rest of us are waiting to see what it is you’re about to create. What’s your wild idea?
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