Job satisfaction doesn't have to be a total mystery. Happiness doesn't have to always feel just out of reach.
The average American now works about 47 hours per week. That is roughly 2,350 hours per year if you count—and take—two vacations. That's basically 100 full 24-hour days spent at work.
I stopped my math here because it became overwhelming. What I want to talk about is happiness at work, especially as we spend so much time and energy on our careers. But it's more than that.
It’s about our health. It’s about our happiness. It’s about the rest of our lives.
The truth is, much of our days, our purpose, and our identities revolve around not who we are, but what we do. After the last few years we've all had, you'd think the pressure would have worn down, but it feels like it has circled back.
Table of Contents
- How to Find a Healthy Work-Life Balance
- Remember: Your Job is a Part of You, Not All of You
- Step 1: Find the Root Problem
- Step 2: Examine Your Options
- Step 3: Make Workplace Friends That Share Career (And Life) Goals
- Step 4: Instead of a New Job, Try Finding a Hobby
- Step 5: Dump the Toxic Stuff
- Step 6: If All Else Fails, Then Yes, Leave Your Job
- What's Next?
How to Find a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Work bleeds into our lives.
When we're experiencing unhappiness at work, we might bring that unhappiness home. The same can be true in reverse, too. When navigating anxiety around personal circumstances, we might bring that to the office, too. It all gets mixed up into a completely confusing amalgamation of emotions.
Though we are much more than just our job titles, we realize how much significance we, and society, place on our jobs. Attention to our own mental health can't be paused during work hours. We need to give ourselves attention and compassion.
We needn't lean into our misery and sadness, but we also can't escape them either.
The truth is, unless we are actively sorting through our negative feelings, we cannot fix them. It's easy enough to throw our hands in the air and declare, "I hate my job!"...but maybe it's not the job.
If you wake up dreading Mondays, find yourself frustrated with your weeks, and discover you’re feeling sluggish and unmotivated both in the workplace and outside of it, it's time to make a change. The question is whether that means quitting your job, speaking to a therapist, or quitting bad habits that exacerbate all of our most negative emotions.
Work doesn’t just end when we clock out. We carry the weight of feeling unfulfilled back into our off-hours—threatening relationships, our health, and our happiness.
EDITOR'S NOTE: If you feel that you are suffering from addiction or depression, please seek professional help. Here at Career Contessa, we are not mental health professionals, but the resources below can help you navigate feelings of anxiety, isolation, or depression.
Remember: Your Job is a Part of You, Not All of You
So what can we do?
The bad news? You're feeling a little stuck right now. The good news? You won't feel this way forever.
Here's the deal. The world is always busy. It's easy to lose track of ourselves and our own happiness. It's easy to start to believe that happiness is a luxury or, worse, a fantasy.
Discard the guilt, anxiety, and frenzied energy that work brings. Take some time to really explore what's going on with you. If you have to take a mental health day to analyze your state, do it. If you need to look up your old therapist or seek new professional help, do it.
Remember, your career is a part of you, but it is not all of you. Let's take these next steps to break the barriers, find the remedy, and get to work on your real life's work: you.
Step 1: Find the Root Problem
Whether you feel generally satisfied with your career or deeply frustrated, it is important to check in with yourself. Start by assessing what's actually getting to you (it might not be what you think).
Sometimes, the root problem is a bad job, a boss that chips away at your self-esteem, or a simple need for change.
Take some time out of your busy schedule to audit your week:
- Where do you spend the majority of your time?
- How do you feel on a day-to-day basis?
- Are you lethargic and moody, or motivated, inspired, and energized?
- How are your coworkers' moods? Are you surrounded by happy people or are your coworkers a more negative bunch?
- When your mind wanders at work, are you experiencing positive or negative thoughts?
Examine how your work affects you, both mentally and physically. Once you take stock of where you spend your time and how you feel, do a little bit of soul-searching:
- What are you good at?
- What makes your heart beat faster?
- Would you say you are generally fulfilled in your career?
No matter how you answered, take a deep breath and repeat after me: “I am not stuck.” You always have options.
Step 2: Examine Your Options
There are multiple factors in the workplace that may have you down. Whether it is the office environment or your daily tasks, examine ways you can shift these around to boost your job happiness.
Here are some common workplace problems you might be struggling to address:
- Workplace Burnout
- Toxic Work Environment
- Bad Leadership (Including narcissistic, passive-aggressive, jealous, or even psychotic bosses)
- Hostile Work Environment (rife with discrimination, bullying, and harassment)
The workforce is finally changing. Many companies are taking note of how younger generations and millennials work most productively, offering better office environments and schedule flexibility to entice this next generation of employees.
Sit down and have an honest discussion with your boss or supervisor to examine your options. If you’re more productive early in the morning and want your afternoons free, ask for flexible hours. If your work can be completed on a remote basis, ask if there is flexibility to work from home.
Love your company, but hate what you do? Be willing to ask for more support or responsibility in your position, or see if there are openings within your company to shift roles.
If you've been dreaming of spearheading a company blog, pitch it to your manager. Create the opportunities that you're dreaming of.
Step 3: Make Workplace Friends That Share Career (And Life) Goals
Your workplace companions just may make up the majority of your human (or digital) interactions on the daily.
You may even see them more than a significant other or your BFF! Developing these bonds can greatly increase your work happiness by building a more supportive and collaborative office environment. Not to mention, you’ll have a buddy for your lunch break.
If your office environment is feeling a little bit quiet and sterile, suggest weekly happy hours or office lunches—either in person or virtual work! If the group doesn’t want to participate, start small by sharing lunch each week with a few employees in your department, or with people you connect with.
Combine your relationship building with an employee wellness program and sign up for a 5k fun run or barre class together. Work with a virtual team? Here are ways to team-build with them!
You don’t have to slog through the stress alone. Surrounding yourself with a community that understands the work struggles you face will help keep you all more content with your job.
Step 4: Instead of a New Job, Try Finding a Hobby
You are not your job. You’re a human, with thoughts, feelings, emotions, and passions that extend outside of the 9-to-5. So why not use them?
Finding a hobby outside of your work can benefit your overall feeling of purpose and contentment while sparking inspiration and creativity.
Join a local group, get hooked on a spin class at a local studio, take up a painting class, or learn french and plan your European vacation.
If you want to give back to your local community find volunteer opportunities. Even if you're working from home, you can remotely tutor, teach, or even offer support to isolated individuals.
If you want to give back to your local community find volunteer opportunities. Even if you're working from home, you can remotely tutor, teach, or even offer support to isolated individuals.
Expand your horizons outside of the office. Finding fulfillment and creativity in this refreshing space will improve your overall quality of life in and outside of the workplace.
Step 5: Dump the Toxic Stuff
If Facebook or social media were a liquid, they would surely have a skull and crossbones sticker affixed to them. It's no coincidence that we dive into the belly of these beasts when we're feeling our worst.
The self-sabotaging behaviors of doom-scrolling and hyper-comparison convince us that every person has it together. In this scenario, you are the outsider.
Dump it. Cut it out. Log off.
If your vices or addictions become companions when you're feeling down, make sure you're aware of it.
Common vices can include social media, impulse shopping, drinking alcohol, drug use, or other harmful habits. While some of these indulgences can be fine in moderation, pay attention to your relationship with them when you're feeling lost. Getting lost in an Instagram hole or drinking a bottle of rose on a Tuesday can be symptoms of something much deeper.
Now that you've freed up those 17 hours of screen time, try something a little lighter. Chip away at that pile of books on your bedside table. Queue up a yoga video or try meditation for the first time. Create some positive mantras and use them often.
Step 6: If All Else Fails, Then Yes, Leave Your Job
Many of us will cycle through numerous jobs, positions, and companies during our professional lives. So if you are truly dissatisfied with your job, sometimes branching out to try something new is all it takes to shake up your career motivation.
Quitting your job does not mean you’re a quitter.
Over the years, quitting adopted some pretty negative connotations. But the truth is, sometimes we must rid ourselves of what is no longer serving us in order to make room for the next step. The same advice can be said for being laid-off. Being laid-off doesn't mean you're not a smart, capable, valuable employee. Whether you quit or you find yourself looking for work, this is a major opportunity in front of you.
When it comes to your job, it is essential to pay attention to what is, and is not, working for you. YOU. Yourself. Don't worry about all the noise around you. It will always be there. Drown it out every once in a while and focus on you.
And when you realize something isn’t working, or you’re losing your creative edge, or you’re constantly exhausted and overall not digging where you're at, be bold. Make the change. Work takes up the majority of our days, love it or hate it. So why not do something you truly love?
Finally, The Best Part of This Process
Once we step out of our comfort zones and into our discomfort zones, we increase our inward and outward empathy. From there, we can bestow acts of kindness on everyone—yes, even that coworker.
If you need more clarity, advice on moving to your next job, or ways to untangle your feelings about work, we have some resources to help you out.
- What to Do When You Hate Your New Job
- 8 Steps to Build Up Your Savings to Quit Your Job
- What is a Career? 5 Things Your Job Shouldn't Be
- Changing Careers? Here's How to Market Yourself In Any Industry
- What Is Career Mapping? How to Map Your Own Career Path
- 5 Signs It's Time to Reroute Your Career Path
