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Before You Leap

It’s a terrible feeling to hate your job. Facing week after week of unhappiness can drain you of any will to be your best self. Sloppy habits can start to leave you feeling ill every Monday morning. Apathy while on the job can cause you to be passed over for promotions, trainings or other perquisites. Bitterness can seep in as you see others going about their days seemingly happy with what they do. Can despair be far behind?

And despair is contagious. When couples come to me for therapy, one of the first places I assess for psychological health is the level of work satisfaction of each person. If I had to guess, I’d say 85% of marital problems are caused by job dissatisfaction in one or both members of the couple.

When people hate their jobs, they often believe that they are trapped due to poor choices that they have made, indisputable lack of talent and laziness. The poor choices were, of course, driven by stupidity. So, if being unhappy with work wasn’t bleak enough, a toxic job also leaves people feeling stupid, boring and lazy.

If this is true for you, please take the time before you embark on the serious and effortful journey outlined in the following articles on career change to review some of the articles that can prepare you for this journey. You need to believe that choices that you have made throughout your life, even those that turned out to be ill-advised, were made in earnestness. If you have only hateful things to say to yourself inside your head, you need to replace that conversation with a healthier one. In order to be able to uncover the clues that will put you back on the road toward a satisfying career, you need to have abundant self-esteem, good internalized parental voices and a lot of lust for life.

If you believe you were well raised and are basically satisfied with your life other than your career, please jump right in to the next article and start seeking your employment bliss. If you feel beaten down by life – even a little – please give yourself a couple of weeks to read the articles recommended in the paragraphs above before you challenge yourself with reworking your world of work.