Fall Back in Love with Your Work

If you’ve walked into a grocery store in the past two weeks you can’t escape it, February is the month of love! While I can’t give you any advice on planning the perfect Valentine’s Day date or help you pick out the perfect gift to tell that special someone (or pet) just how much you care, I’d love to help you rekindle that fire that once burned with your relationship with your work.

Last month I shared the belief that workplace engagement is less about your professional circumstances and more about your connection to the work you do. The current social media trend is to seek out ways to work as little as possible to find true happiness. “Quiet quitting,” “The Great Resignation,” and the four-day workweek may be what you are reading about; however, if you’re reading these articles, I’d also encourage you to google “The Great Regret” where you will learn that 25-40% of those who left their jobs in the past couple of years regret their decision. This statistic tells us that instead of seeking greener grass elsewhere, we should start by turning on the spout to water our own grass. Here are four steps to help you fall a little deeper in love with your work this month:

Step One: Remind yourself of why you chose this work to begin with. Remember when you were interviewing for your job? You were likely asked what drew you to the role. Was it the desire to help others? Or to work for a company with a great culture? Was it to help clients? Or was it to be in a position that challenged you and helped you grow? Chances are that what attracted you to your job is something you get to experience regularly. Congratulations, you got what you asked for!

Step Two: Remind yourself of what you love about your current scenario and embrace it with a heart of gratitude. There is no right answer to what you love about your job. It could be the people, the clients, the flexibility, the stretch, and it absolutely could be the paycheck it provides. Whatever the answer is to the question of what you love about your current job, celebrate that!

Step Three: Stop building an unproductive inventory of all the things you don’t like about your work, and more importantly, stop commiserating about your frustrations with the coworkers who can’t do anything to change the circumstances. If you are frustrated, go talk to someone who can help you create the change you are asking for – schedule the meeting now. Failing to do so won’t make things better, and trust me, you may be contributing to the dissatisfaction of others. (FYI – it quickly moves from venting to whining when you continue to complain without a proposal to improve).

If you can’t be constructive, please just be quiet. Now, if you’ve taken your concerns to leadership in earnest, and they aren’t being resolved, understand that you have a choice to make. As Cy Wakeman says, “Either stay in joy, or go in peace.” Life is too short to stay in a job you hate.

Step four: Invest in the joy of others. Eleanor Roosevelt told us, “For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.” Take a few minutes and think of a few co-workers you can positively impact. Ask yourself what they might need to love their job a little more and then act. It could be as simple as having coffee or lunch, or as significant as providing a cool professional opportunity to help them grow. The feeling you will get from helping someone else is guaranteed to bring back the butterflies you once felt for your job.