Unhappiness at Work - Resolving The Three Causes Behind Job Dissatisfaction

It’s time to tell yourself the truth.

Is your unhappiness in the workplace due to others or you?

The good news is, if the reason behind your unhappiness is self-based, you can do something about it.

There are only three things to ask yourself in order to find career happiness. Let me show you what those are:

1. Am I in the wrong job for my personality?
2. Am I in the wrong job for my skills?
3. Does my career match my values?

PERSONALITY
For Jackie, whose personality was laid back and easy going, she made a big mistake when she went to work as a University Personnel Dispatcher. Labeled “The Worst Job I Ever Had,” Jackie says the immense stress of being told that other people’s lives rested in her hands, along with working all three shifts each week caused her physical health to plummet and she soon landed in the hospital.

There is no question that prolonged stress causes physical health problems. For Jackie, her biggest stress came from a personality trying to change to fit the job. This was a total mismatch from the get-go and proof that none of us can afford to choose work which does not fit our personality.

SKILLS
Greg was desperate to find a job so that he could adequately support his young family. Much like today, he was looking for work during a recession. Back in the early 1970's it seemed the entire United States was out of work. For the first six months of 2008 statistics show we are once again in a slow motion slide into recession around the world. Desperate times make desperate decisions, unless we have a plan.

Perhaps we can learn from Greg’s dilemma. At the time he was so anxious to find work that he asked his father-in-law for a roofing job. Greg’s skills include those of being a hard worker, but the problem was, he was extremely skilled at office work.

The recession found him living in the California “projects” where there were beatings, shootings and gangs. He knew this was no place to raise a family. And so, after months of being out of work, he took the first job that was offered to him. He asked himself, “What do I know about roofing?” He would go home at night covered in grime with his skin scratched from head to toe, too worn out to even kiss the baby.

Greg gave it his best effort and continued to grind out his daily work, but the price was too high to pay. The money was good, but he began to see a deterioration in his self esteem and his home life. Hoping to get out of the “projects” and keep his marriage intact, he was at a loss as to where to go or what to do next. As a result, he did nothing and lost his income, his marriage and his home. Many people around the world are in this same predicament.

What could Greg have done to avert a personal disaster? Several things.
• He could have sought the advice of a career counselor
• He could have made a list of his three best skills (they turned out to be hard working, ideas-oriented and details-oriented) and gone job searching for a career looking for an employer with those same skill needs.

Instead, he became mired in hopelessness and lost everything dear to him. Clearly, career unhappiness is associated with mismatched skills to the job. Greg later went on to a long term career in warehouse tracking, where he was able to use his best three skills.

VALUES
During the early 1980's Carrie was on State aid and hated it. She kept looking for work and was finally hired by a new vacuum cleaner store in town. During one of her training sessions the trainer bragged about his best friend in the business who was SO successful. He told his students that his friend would scour the newspaper for new births in the area and then run out to the home of the new parents with a vacuum cleaner admonishing the happy couple, “Look how dirty your house is, and with a new baby in the home.”

Carrie heard the story and left the company in the middle of the training sessions, never to return.

To Carrie, her most important value in life and career was honesty.

To the vacuum cleaner company, Carrie believed their most important value was sales and money.

Once again, this was a total mismatch of values.

Later, Carrie went on to finish college and began work at a newspaper where she advanced from office manager to an assistant editor. She said of her new company, “This industry incorporated the skills I had been trained in, met my need for working with the public and because a newspaper can be sued for libel if they don’t print the truth, my value for honesty was met.”

To resolve your unhappiness with your company or career choice, just follow the outline listed above and you will be find more meaningful work. Holding yourself accountable for your unhappiness at work is the first step toward resolving that dissatisfaction.

For updates on how to find your best career/personality match go to Life's Work Career
For further information on the Spiritual application of this subject go to Applying Spiritual Principles

© 2008

To your career success!