How do you escape from a job that you hate and how do you find a job that you’ll Love?
On this day…this “Labor Day”, it’s a day when those in the United States have chosen to honor those who work for a living by giving them a national day of recognition and rest.
This is great, but what about tomorrow? What about all the other tomorrow’s after that? Are you happy with your job? Are you pleased with your career? Or, are you dreading yet another day of spending time at a place that drains you of your energy, marginalizes your best efforts, and seeks to constantly crush your spirit? If this describes you, then know that you are currently engaged in a form of Economic Warfare.
Though, you are not exactly a “Casualty of War” like many of our unfortunate brothers and sisters who have been laid off, downsized, right-sized, “capsized”, or whatever the hell the business world is calling it these days—you are still far from happy, far from fulfilled, and far from free.
If this describes you, then know that on this Labor Day, you should take some time to consider reaching out in whatever way you can to be an ally to those brothers and sisters who aren’t even fortunate enough to have a job to complain about. Can you do something to improve their situation? If so, then do it.
Also, while you’re at it, take time to recognize whether or not you are at war or at peace with your present job situation. Is it oppressive? Do you feel like a prisoner of war due to the bad economy? If this describes you, are you willing to do to whatever it takes to improve your position? Are you desperate to leave your dead-end job or are you just desperate but not serious?
If you are serious about finding a way to break out of a Job you hate and into a Career you love, then realize that what has happened is that you’ve just been slapped in the face by the iron glove of an inconvenient truth:
Just because you’ve found a job doesn’t mean that you’ve found your “Calling”.
Your Calling is that vocation, that place, that mission in life that best suits you, your gifts, and your skills.
Understand that the more your occupation compliments your calling, the more your inner peace will increase and the greater the chances you’ll increase your financial prosperity as well. Conversely, the further away your occupation is from your true calling, the more susceptible you will be to all kinds of stress.
Are you under attack by Workplace Stress?
There are actually 4 different kinds of stress you can have, but only “one” of them is good.
Distress – This is stress that you feel when you’re faced with adverse events in your life that you find hard to cope with. Distress can be either short-lived or sustained. How long it lasts depends on either how long the event lasts or how well you marshal the forces necessary to successfully manage the source of the stress.
Hyperstress – This is stress on a whole other level above mere “distress”. Hyperstress is when the stress-inducing event goes on indefinitely, with no foreseeable end in sight. This is stress that’s caused by being repeatedly overwhelmed or overloaded by all the things you have to do. If you’ve felt this kind of stress, then you truly know what it means to be “stressed out”.
Hypostress – This is the flip side of what it’s like to experience Hyperstress. Hypostress is stress that originates from suffering from nonstop boredom. That’s right, you can actually experience stress from NOT having enough to do. It usually stems from being in a situation where you’re doing a bunch of mindless, unfulfilling tasks. Or worse yet, it can come from feeling trapped in a situation where you’re more tempted to watch the clock than focus on what you’re supposed to be doing. If you know what this kind of stress is like, then you definitely know what it means to feel like you’re wasting away from too much restlessness and too little motivation.
Eustress – But wait—there’s also good stress. Yes, you heard me; I said “good” stress. Eustress is when you have positive mental and emotional responses to what’s going on in your life. Eustress has a positive, fulfilling, and uplifting effect on you. Eustress is what you feel when you:
- Get excited over going to a concert
- Meet up with an attractive girl who also acts like she’s attracted to YOU too
- Feel proud over the birth of your son or your daughter
- Feel a sense of triumph when you accomplish a major goal
- Get thrilled by the idea of going to work on Monday
And the list could go on, but you get the idea.
The take home message is that good things in life can also impact your emotional and mental equilibrium too. The big difference here is that what these life events accomplish is make you stop and take note of all the thinks in your life that you can honestly be thankful for. At this point, you should be able to clearly see how your job, and how you feel about your job, can play a major role in which kind of stress you experience. Do you experience more of the three kinds of “bad” stress, or do you experience more of the “good” kind of stress?
In order to increase your happiness with your occupation, you have to either change the way you view your current job, find another job, or find an entirely other way to generate your income. A smart person would pick just one of these three options, but an even smarter person would pick all three.
Economic Prisoner of War: What do you do while you’re still working on a job you hate?
Sometimes, working on a job you hate, or have just merely “’outgrown” can sometimes feel like you’re caught behind enemy lines. Or, even worse—it can make you feel more like a Prisoner of War. So as a result of this, your first mission to accomplish while you’re working a job you hate should be simply “survival”. That’s right. Survival.
While working a job you hate, you should:
Plan your escape. Just like a prison break, breaking out of a job that you hate sometimes requires just as much motivation and meticulous planning. Make your free time away from work the time you spend networking, making allies and connections, and researching other financial opportunities that you will swiftly act upon at the right time.
Focus on parts of the job that you actually do like and find fulfillment in those tasks. There is some element within almost every job that you can find enjoyable. Search for that bright spot during this dark time.
Change the way you think about those elements of your job that you don’t enjoy. When you can discover ways that you can personally benefit from the knowledge and skills that you develop from a job you hate—you will find that you hate it a little less.
Make your break time your time. When it’s time to break—BREAK. When it’s time to go to lunch, truly be OUT to lunch. If possible, leave the job mentally and leave the building physically. Do things during your break times that will directly benefit you personally. Also, if it’s possible to escape the rigors of the workday through doing things that uplift you like reading, laughing, or even praying—then do it. The more you can routinely escape from the maze of corporate cubicles, the more you’ll be able to diffuse a significant amount of workplace stress.
Remind yourself of who you are. While you’re there “imprisoned” in a job you hate, surround yourself with things that remind you of who you really are. You are far MORE than what you do for someone else for 8 hours a day. Don’t EVER allow yourself to forget that.
Get Intel on what employment opportunities may be available at either your current company or another. Use the stability of your present employment situation as a launch pad to a successful move to another job. Or better yet, the start of your own business.
Use adversity as ammunition to attack enemies to your success. Whenever your coworkers, supervisors, or managers ask you to do ridiculous tasks, ask you to accomplish impossible goals, or seek to take advantage of your need to “keep your job”, do not take it personally.
Instead, become resourceful in your ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome by actually doing your best to accomplish what you’ve been asked to do. Yes, as you continue to fight for survival in an Employment Egypt-land, go ahead and continue to make “bricks without straw”, all the while—using your anger over your unpleasant situation as fuel to fire you up even more to follow your own dreams.
Always remember, the best revenge is always to live well. To live well, in your case, will be to eventually have the last laugh. Focus on how good it will feel when you can leave that job, those bosses, and all their bull crap behind. The last laugh will be yours when you have successfully escaped your nightmare job by embarking on a whole new career—a career of your choosing.
However, how exactly do you escape from behind enemy lines and venture forth into a place of financial prosperity that you can call home?
Follow for now and be a Leader later
Its’ true that there’s nothing entirely new under the sun. There are only new people experiencing the same old things. Along with that statement, it’s also true that wherever you’re trying to go in your career, someone else has already gone somewhere very similar to where you’re trying to go. To escape from where you are employment-wise now, your mission should be to follow the example laid down by those who have already succeeded in making it to where you want to be.
Those people are called Role Models. What is a Role Model? A Role Model is a mentor. It’s a person who is willing to be your ally. It’s a person who hasn’t forgotten where he or she came from, and is willing to both look back and reach back to help others make it to whatever higher ground that they have already achieved.
A Role Model is any person whose life you can learn from in order to better your own. A Role Model can be someone you know or merely know “of”. The huge advantage of learning life lessons from others WITHOUT having to go through the trials and errors of that they did to learn it—cannot be overestimated.
It has been said that success is a formula, and that it leaves tracks for others to follow in order for them to achieve the same results. Though it can be questioned whether or not this statement is unequivocally true, there’s no doubt that it is indeed much more true than not.
Therefore, in order to get a better job, start your own business, or better your financial situation, rolling with a Role Model will usually get you there much quicker than trying to needlessly reinvent the wheel of success. Don’t reinvent the wheel; just roll it in the direction you want it to go.
Work becomes play to those people in a position fortunate enough to experience this as their reality. Experiencing this for yourself should be your goal—your mission. So what should you do in the meantime? In the meantime, while you remain behind enemy lines working an oppressive job you hate, you should redouble your efforts to execute your plans for escape. As the pressure to succumb to defeat rises, steady your resolve by remembering the Latin phrase “
“Illegitimi non carborundum”
More importantly, remember the English translation of that phrase, which is:
“Don’t let the Bastards grind you down.”
Continue to prepare for the future by focusing on the things you can do today. Have faith and believe in the possibility that you will receive your planned for, positive outcome in the near future. Remember that consistent expectation of future success is what motivates you to make everyday progress.
Know that everyone alive was born for a purpose. Know that one of the most critical pursuits in life is for you to find those problems in life that you were born to solve—and SOLVE them.
Time is of the essence. Make today the day that you start laboring for yourself. Your enhanced enjoyment of life depends on it.
Godspeed to you as you execute your Escape Plan!
~Victory Unlimited
