If you feel miserable in your job, not all is lost. I want to give you two quick career advancement tips that you may not have thought of.
I know you may feel you hate your job or you want to do something else and you may even be on the verge of jumping ship (the right way), but I want to encourage you to slow down to consider improving things first.
In fact, your current job may be the perfect place and opportunity for you to grow your career if you can approach it the right way. It pays to put on our glasses and take a closer look. Let’s do that together now.
“Every problem has a solution!”, my Dad would say every time something went wrong, and I can tell you that we have had some dire situations in our past, but he has proven his theory to be true in all of them.
So even if you feel miserable in your job, get a grip and put on your problem solving hat for today’s lesson because it’s about to drastically improve.
Sometimes, it is the situation and not the actual work that is making us miserable at work and therefore causing a huge barrier to career advancement.
If that’s the case, and you enjoy the actual your work, focus on improving the situation surrounding that work so you can begin to shine in the eyes of management again. How do you do that?
2 Ways to Improve Your Job Situation Fast
Remember, just about everything is up for negotiation at work – this is a big topic that I cover in depth as we talk more about career advancement in upcoming lessons too but nothing is ever “set in stone”. And your boss and management can exercise a lot of control but you have to find the right way to ask for this. Here are 2 ways you can improve a current miserable situation at your job today:
1. Negotiating on Telecommuting: If you dread going into work altogether, ask your boss to allow you to telecommute – work from home – once a week if not more.
Here is how you convince the boss. Tell him that:
- You can be more productive without the office distractions.
- You can get more done while not commuting back and forth in traffic.
- You can really get more motivated about the rest of the time in the office with this one change in “scenery” and environment, and that can benefit you and your energy and vibe around the office.
Here are two motives for your boss to let you telecommute:
First: it’s extremely cost-beneficial for companies to let employees telecommute. In fact, if you wanted to go full-time, it would really look good in the books.
Second, he can get more productivity out of you by knowing that you will be happier and able to focus more.
Remember that and your negotiation will go very well.
2. Re-setting expectations: If you have lost your interest in doing the current project or task at hand, but you still love the underlying work, ask to be put on a new project so you can learn again.
Here is how you go about it:
- You say that the learning mindset is extremely beneficial for allowing you to be your best and brightest.
- You research other projects and organizations and do the home work for your boss by making suggestions on which project to move you to.
- You show that it is to the ultimate benefit of the company to make sure employees change things up and grow every so often.
This way, you can make things tolerable and even pleasant for the time being as you plan your long-term exit strategy, if need be, and continue to seek work that you can love and find meaningful.
