No, I don’t hate my job, but you might hate your job. Do you know why? I am going to help you think differently about your job. There is no need to hate work; there is always a solution to job dissatisfaction and you might hold the key yourself. I am going to ask you some questions, you will provide the answers. So do you want to do something about it?

Question #1: What is your career goal?
Don’t know? You know what you don’t want to do? In my experience job dissatisfaction is often caused by lack of career goal and direction. You might be like a boat at sea with no people aboard to navigate. No direction equals no purpose, no purpose equals no meaning, no meaning equals boredom.

Question #2: What do you love about your job?
Hate is often the result of continuous negativity. Can you list 10 things you love about your job?

Question #3: Can you get a better job elsewhere?
The reason I ask is; why have you yet not moved there? Are you not qualified? Will you get a good enough recommendation from your current boss? A lot of unsatisfied employees slows down productions, displays bad work ethics and might end up close to being fired if they don’t quit first. Have you ever thought that you might need to do something yourself to improve your result, references and your qualifications?

Question #4: Who is suffering from your hate?
Hate is an internal feeling and the only one suffering from hate is you. If you hate your boss, he might still get results, if your motivation is so low that it hurts productivity you are that will end up without a job. Hate is a feeling that will get you nowhere.

Question #5: How can you change?
Did you know that some people love having a bad boss? Do you know why? It is a learning opportunity; you can learn what not to do if you ever become management material. You can learn what not to do if you ever open your own business. You might not be able to change your job, but can you change?

Question #6: What can you change?
Is there anything you can do to thrive at work, with non work related tasks? Do you care about your co-workers? Can you serve coffee? Water some plants? Clean? Decorate? Talk with people? Teach other how to do their job correctly? Is there anything around that you can grab responsibility for? Is there an area your boss is missing? Can you take charge in those areas? Anything you can do to make your day more interesting.

Question #7: Where is your passion?
You probably lost your passion for your job? What got you there in the first place? What things could keep you up all night because it is fun and interesting? Can you make a living of it? Is there any jobs related to your passion? Can you bring some of your passion to work? If you like to take pictures, you could do so at work, make an office picture art expo. Do you like to create websites? Could your services be of use for your company?

Question #8: When are you going to quit?
If you hate your job, and you see no way out of it, then quit! What are you dependent of your income? Read question #3, if yes, quit. If no, find what your job is doing for you. List ten things you can do because of your job and your income, if you can’t list ten things you probably not in need of your pay?

Question #9: Who is in charge of your life?
Are you making your own decisions? Is anybody forcing you to stay at your job? There is a lot of responsibility resting on your shoulders. You are a part of a team; it is your job to make the other happy. If you can teach this philosophy to everyone around you, they all will try to make you happy; just don’t be a grump about it.

Question #10: Do you think you need to be negative?
Negative or positive, it is actually a choice. Do you choose to be positive? Take 5 minutes before your job. Read the ten things you love about your job, read the ten things your paycheck is giving in return to you. Chose your attitude to be positive and see if the days turn out a little better.

As you see, being unsatisfied at work might be something you can change. You have the power to turn your current job into your dream job.

So what are you going to do about it?
You could become a great employee? Or you could find your dream job?  Either way I hope you dig my blog and want to subscribe to it. I would also recommend this post to add some value to your job. Thank you so much for reading! You rock!

Why should you have the right attitude? There is one factor that will have a huge impact on almost everything you do in life. Your attitude will determine the outcome of your goals. Did you know that it is possible to choose your attitude? Have you ever been given a task that seemed impossible? What was the outcome? You attitude might actually prevent you from success even before you get the chance to try, why is that? Did you know that your attitude can prevent you from trying? What can we do about it?

Learned Helplessness

I have been reading Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Ph.D. Martin Seligman. His book is about how people can learn helplessness and not see or not apply any effort to an obvious solution. And of course his book is also about learning optimism and solving just such problems. This actually proves that you might get obstacles in your life that seem so hard that you will not even try, resulting in failure or unhappiness.

When Change Comes

You probably do not like change? Human does not like change, change is often challenging our comfort zone. Have there at any time been changes in your life that you thought was bad? Did it turn out bad? Is there a pattern between good and bad change, and good and bad outcome? We do like to say told you so? Don’t we?  Hang in there with me as I am soon getting to the point.

Failed To Reach Your Goal?

Did you fail to reach your goal? Is the goal so overwhelming that you even won’t try? My son is six years old and he replies with: “I do not know how to do that!” whenever I am trying to teach him something new. I try to tell him that’s why we are going to try it, but in many situations he just refuse to try because his fear of failure.

It Is All About Your Attitude

The great thing about our mind is that we can chose our attitude and be aware about our obstacles. Read these 3 points:

1. Even if the problem seems unsolvable, do try to solve it. Do not give up. Do ask for help, consider other options. If I tell you to carry 100 rocks from A to B, you will be exhausted before you are finished if you carry one and one rock. If you find a wheelbarrow and a friend with a wheelbarrow you task will be done faster with the correct outcome, the rocks are located at B. If you get a truck you might even finish it much easier. There is one certain guaranteed way to fail any task, and that is not trying. So whatever the obstacle choose to try!
2. Oh, no there is change coming along. Change can be good or bad. But there is almost no way you can know beforehand. You can cut of a finger, and it might not be bad, if you decide to play the lottery while visiting the hospital, and won $ 15.000.000? When change is entering your life, try to stay positive as you will not know if the change is good or bad, until long time after. You can make a choice to be positive, and if you do most changes will be good. If a change create an obstacle, do not say “I told you so” rather read number one again.
3. There is one saying from Confucius that I like: “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” There is no reason to stay fat if your diet failed. There is no reason to feel as a failure if you did not manage to get the report in on time. If you do not reach your goals, do not adjust the goals. Do not think of yourself as a failure. It is all in the actions. You need to do something different! Does that require change? Read part two again. Is it creating an obstacle? Read part 1 again.

When it comes to attitude you have a few choices, either give it a try and have a fighting chance or do not try and be sure not to succeed. Either you will stay positive and embrace change and try to make it good or be negative and fight the change that’s around the corner making the change a failure. When it comes to not reaching your goals either adjust your actions or give up and never reach your goal.

I hope that you will see that having a positive fighting attitude will make your life better either at work or at home. If your attitude is the other way around you will be certain to fail, but you will have the chance to say I told you so one more time.

If you now need some motivation take a look at these 10 blog posts about motivation

Or you can read this blog post about motivation to learn more about the mechanism of motivation. Do you have enough ego drive to succeed?

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This is “snatched” from my book in progress. I am currently writing a book with the working title: “How to Become a GREAT Employee and Succeed at Work” – This is from the preface, raw, yet unedited. I have only one ambition and it is to write around 100-120 pages packed with good tips on how to become a great employee. I am so far written 75 pages and have drafts for yet four more chapters. I hope you enjoy this little preview.

How great is your job today?

On a scale from one to ten, where one is worse and ten is best, how much do you enjoy work today?

 Feel free to add other important aspects of your job, like parking space, if that is important to you, or your salary, it is up to you to decide what is important. You can also leave out some of the already mentioned Inventory Items. 

Add it all up and divide by the number of scored items. Find your average score.

Did you score below 4 points?

You should really consider changing your job as soon as possible, you are most likely unhappy at work, and going to work is draining your energy. But do not quit just yet. If you read this book and come back to this exercise in a month or two, you might end up in the “it is still hope for me” – category.

Did you score between 4 and 7 points?

This book is really mostly written with you in mind. This is the “it is still hope category”. You have great possibilities to contribute to your own progress over the next few months by following the steps and exercises provided in this book. If you are reading this book for the second time and have improved from four or less points, congratulations, you can do it.

Did you score more than 7 points?

Wow! Congratulations, it sounds like you have a dream job. You might be very lucky indeed. But there might still be a thing or two to learn even for you. Many of the things you do at work might be a habit, and you might not really think about what’s really the reason for your job happiness? What is behind the score that you provided? And you might even learn a trick or two on how to get the people around you to share in on your joy.

If you want to follow my writing progress, please do subscribe for blog updates by clicking here PS! You might even win $40 Gift Card from Amazon.com – Limited time!

I am a soccer fan; I have played for years in the lower divisions until a shoulder injury forced my goalkeeper gloves to be put in the darkest places of the closet. I never became good at this game, but I still had fun and joy playing against the worst soccer players in the Norwegian soccer league. How is your team doing? Today I want to compare soccer and business life to show why you should be the star player always.

The Team – What division are you playing in?
First of all imagine your department as a soccer team. How is it doing in the leagues, are you the premiership or an amateur team? What team do you wish to play for? Are you fighting for the championship or against relegation? Are there star players on your team? Are you acting as a team? Or is everybody just hatching their own balls like it where eggs?

Your team probably has a manager, a coach and a bunch of players. Your field might be top notch or you might be playing on gravel. There might be rules from the league (Board), rules from the team owner (CEO) or other regulations in your game. Some are good, and some you hate. Your manager or your coach might be amateurs. Still you have to be the star player, and I am about to tell you why.

Your dream job!
What does your dream job look like? Is it making more money? Is it at another company? Is it doing something different? Is it playing left field, striker or defense? Whatever your dream job is, unless you have it right now, you are dead wrong! Your dream job is not out there! Your dream job is inside your own head. And you need to create your dream job right now, right here.

Do not be a grump at work, if you are unhappy and if you do a poor job right now, you will never ever find your dream job elsewhere, because doing a poor job now will not get you anywhere. Imagine Manchester United or Barcelona, what kind of players do they buy? YEAH! They buy other star players and great talents. They do not buy the unhappy chubby guy in the lower divisions that won’t run if you poke him with a stick. Star players are recruited for the best teams. This is why you need to be a star player where you are right now! No matter your current working conditions or even if it rains on top of it. If you manage to shine at work, you will be noticed, you will get good recommendations when the scouts shows up. And if you can build your dream job out of manure you will always have your dream job.

The team needs you
Know your role and be a role model. Veteran workers are often the unmotivated workers, while they shall be the once that carry the burden of making your team great. You should strive to create fun around you, make other people happy and make your team mates good. You should always do your best. At the end of the day you must feel good about what you have managed during the day. Do not try to hide or get away with less when you can do more. Run that extra mile. “But my pay is bad, they do not pay me enough…” I do not care is my response, because you will never reach the salary of Manchester United players if you are about to be benched at your own game.

Are you a leader at work today?
As a leader you need to act as a soccer coach in the field as well. If you see a good coach, live at a great team’s practice, you will notice that the good coach interferes as soon as a fault appears. He blows his whistle and stops the game. Why the h… did you not pass the ball now? Why did you not cross it into the box? Next time run fifteen feet further and bend it like a banana into the box. This is what you will notice at the practice field. If the player refuses to do so, they are sent into the shower, but if they do what they are told, they will succeed. But the coach must be in the trenches and deal with trouble instantly. If you can correct a faulty behavior at work at once you will also succeed as a coach of the team. Why did you leave out important information in the reports, they are essential for the project, do it over. Do not get in a situation where you come one or two weeks later and pointing out how the project failed because of this report was inadequate. Teach them now as it happens.

Good luck winning the league! – Remember it starts right now, inside you.