How to make the most of your “boring” job

We are mixing things up a bit on the Wednesday Inspiring Stories front...in this new mini-series, we are challenging you to think differently about your current situation, if you are dissatisfied or bored with it.

Hope you enjoy it, and have a great Wednesday!

Dead end. Waste of time. Mind numbing.
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These might be some phrases that come to mind when you think of your current career situation; if you are in a job that you don’t enjoy, but you can’t just up and leave because you have bills to pay. It can be so easy to feel, or convince yourself that you are trapped, and you are watching your potential go to waste.

If you have higher aspirations, I totally understand, it can be very frustrating. If you are reading this now, you might be staying up late scrolling down Indeed until you doze off and nearly drop your phone on your face...you are probably busting a gut doing applications every spare minute you can find. If you are, well done! You’re being proactive. Keep aspiring!

But I want to challenge you to look at your current situation with a new perspective. I am writing this as someone who has, and is still living through this. I have been in my current job for a year, and on the face of it, it is quite monotonous and repetitive. I freaked out and thought that if I didn’t get out of there quick, I would fall apart! 

But the first step to changing my feelings of resentment and discontent in my current job was in something as simple as updating my CV! ​

When you are in the daily grind, you are just caught up in the grindiness of  it all, and so you lose awareness of the fantastic skills you have built up
over however long you have been there, and that you are still building on slowly every minute of every day.

I spent some time writing down a bullet point list of what my job consisted of every day, what the skills were that I had gained, and the positive impact I was having on the company, the character and patience and resilience I had built during times when I thought it was not really counting for very much.

When I zoomed out and looked at my “boring job” from the outside in, I realised that really, what I do is quite complex, and there is a lot to it. It requires constant interaction with people, and memorising lots of different bits of information,
​being aware of my surroundings, and all of this requires a lot of focus. It only seems boring and not to count for very much because I am so good at it, and have been doing it for so long.

When I zoomed out even further, I became incredibly grateful for the fact that I have a stable job that pays the bills in the first place, when I remembered where I was before, and how desperate I was for stability before I landed the position. I became grateful for having a job that I know all the ins and outs of, and can answer any question instantly when put on the spot. For having grown along with the company. To be part of a team that is friendly and supportive.

When I changed my perspective, both me and my managers noticed that my performance had dramatically improved. Having a more positive attitude about my current situation has made the day-to-day so much easier, and has even opened up a couple of opportunities that have provided a bit of the variety that I had lacked.

In  this mini series, I will be looking into some more practical ways of changing the way you look at your present situation. Yes, you still might want to leave, but evaluating where you are right now in a more positive light will hopefully make your days more meaningful, and maybe even lead to more opportunities that you may not have been expecting…