Don’t Wait Until You Hate Where You Are
A lot of self-improvement, career advancement, and skillset advancement can be attributed to a pessimistic mindset. If you hate your weight or lack of work ethic, chances are you’ll start changing your habits. If you hate your job, chances are you’ll start looking for another one. If you hate the lack of experience you have with a technology, chances are you’ll get to work learning and growing your skillset. Not all pessimism results in negative behavior, but is change spurred by hatred as effective as change spurred by optimism or planning ahead?
When you get to the point of hating your job it’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself. Your boss is mean to you so you try a little less hard to spite them. Your projects don’t interest you so you waste time throughout the day avoiding them. You know you’ll be spending your nights looking for a new job so you spend your days avoiding work at all costs. Hatred of your situation can trigger negative habits that are hard to break and counterproductive for everyone involved.
So, when you’re starting to hate your job, the best thing to do is accept it. Accept that this is not the position for you. Accept that you have a job search ahead of you and you may have to sacrifice some of your free time to ensure you find the kind of job you really want. Accept that, while you’re ready to move on to the next opportunity, you might not find the right one immediately. Instead of giving up on your current job, make the most of it while you are still there. Resolve to learn everything you can and, once you find the right opportunity and they’ve extended a job offer, you will feel a sense of relief for not giving into negativity.
Although hatred of your situation, your skillset (or lack thereof), or even yourself can be great motivators for change, those changes often come with increased roadblocks. Instead, accept that there’s an aspect of your life, your career, or yourself that you’re ready to adjust and start taking the steps to do so.
The best way to come from a place of optimism is to look ahead at who, what, and where you want to be. Do you see yourself in a leadership role? Then you know you need to start widening your skillset and getting accepting more project responsibilities in your current job. Do you see yourself switching from being a .Net Developer to an Android Developer? Then you know you need to start learning Android development in your free time and working on a few side project apps so you have real world experience. Do you see yourself in a more open, collaborative company? Start looking at those kinds of positions now and see what experience those companies are looking for.
It’s easy to make positive, long lasting change if you focus on who, what, and where you want to be rather than negativity. Letting yourself get to the point where you hate your skillset, your job, or yourself can sometimes motivate change, but that change comes with exponential roadblocks that can be hard to clear. Instead, don’t wait until you hate where you are, start making plans for your future now and you’ll have a better idea of the kind of changes you need to make today.