Not Loving Your Work? This Could be Why!

The average Australian spends 1831 hours working, every year! 1831 hours! (Source).

And if you are anything like the vast majority of the hard working professional women I help, your number is likely to be much more than this.

Work plays a huge role in our lives and to be frank, we spend way too many hours at work, for it not to be fulfilling. 

I truly believe that work can, and should, be enjoyable and rewarding!

Sadly though, many of the mid career professional women I meet, don’t feel this way about their work – instead, they feel unfulfilled, bored and undervalued. 

My experience has shown me that in order to love the job you’re in, it needs to meet three critical criteria:

1. It needs to support you to contribute in a meaningful way

2. It needs to offer you opportunities for growth (boredom can set in pretty quickly if you’re not being stretched and challenged!)

3. You need to feel respected and recognised for the great work you do.

When one or more of these elements are missing, work can feel hard, monotonous and unfulfilling. 

Let me give you an example of how this can play out in real life, and what you can do about it.

I recently spoke with a very talented woman who’d previously had lots of success in her role. When I asked her how she felt about her work now she said, “it sucks”. 

My heart always sinks when I hear work described this way.  It reminds me of a time when I pretty much disliked everything about my work too.  

But enough about me…

When we took a deeper look into why she was feeling this way about her work, we discovered that her need for growth – number 2 on the critical criteria list – wasn’t being met. She’d outgrown her job role and was no longer feeling stretched in her work. Because of this, she was feeling uninspired and unfulfilled. 

So here’s the thing… to grow we need to be doing work that stretches us and that means stepping outside your comfort zone.  Staying stuck, doing the same work week after week, month after month will after a time drive us just a little crazy.  

We are now working together to discover opportunities for growth.  The good news is – it doesn’t always mean you have to move jobs.  Very often all it takes is to tweak the way you are approaching the job you’re in.  It may be as simple as stepping up your focus as a leader or taking on a new more challenging project.