Jobhop Jobhop's blog : 10 Ways to Fall in Love with Your Job Again

The majority of us know what it's like to fall out of love with a job - the novelty wears off and the negatives become increasingly difficult to ignore.

When you first began your career, it would be apparent to everyone around you that you held pride in your job. If someone asked you the question 'what do you do for a living?', you went on and on about your job. You even looked forward to that question.

But, as time goes on, the stress of the job starts taking its toll. Eventually, your job no longer feels 'special' like it once did. The slightest things begin to irritate you. The job you once loved is just another job. Does this sound familiar?

Whether it's because of the nature of the work, those we work with, or the workload, losing interest in our work is a common problem. But you'll be happy to know that there are things you can do to fall back in love with your career...

1. Negotiate better perks, e.g. salary

It's time to put your negotiating skills to good use and try to get a raise and better perks. If your company is not willing to budge on a salary increase, figure out what makes you happy and aim for negotiation for those perks instead.

2. Communicate with your boss

Good communication with your boss makes for a happy worker. Set up a time to check in with them and ask him/her for some feedback. If there is anything that you're unsatisfied with at work, express them to her, but remember to keep it professional.

3. Strengthen your work friendships

Friends are what make the world go round and the same rule applies to your working world as well. Try to build up better relationships with your colleagues by doing things like attending more company events and approaching them with a friendlier attitude. After all, I find that it's the people at work that contribute the most to workplace satisfaction.

4. Mentor another employee

When you help another employee, you always end up feeling better about yourself. You feel more confident and ready to accomplish any task you're faced with. You can learn what they like about the job, and that may spark some love back into you and help you remember why you loved working there so much. Also, chances are the person you're mentoring will be a fairly new employee, so they will have that same passion and excitement that you once had.

5. Approach your work with a beginner's mind

Focus on experiencing your work with a state of exploration and curiosity. Create a new experiment.

6. Shake up your routine

Wake up an hour earlier, ask to work from home for a day a week, move your desk or yourself to another part of the office, change your break time, your lunch hour, your path to work. Sometimes little things like this can help to change up your physical surroundings and patterns.

7. Take on more responsibility

It may be that you're bored and that could mean that you don't have enough on your plate to be challenged or to drive excitement. You can address this by asking your boss for more responsibility, and also by looking for opportunities to take on more responsibility if you see something that needs doing but isn't getting done. By doing this, you're able to step away from the repetitive tasks and projects to fulfil a more creative position.

8. Find something to get passionate about

It's completely natural that after a few months of working at a job, you start to get into a routine and everything becomes mundane. A great tip to solve this is to set goals for yourself, like mini challenges.

Pick little projects that you're able to achieve yourself. Getting some recognition from your coworkers or boss for a side project that you did yourself will be so rewarding that it's bound to rekindle some of that old love you once had for your job.

9. Search for a job you love

If you find that no matter what you do, your job is still leaving you unhappy; maybe you should chase your dreams and switch careers. Just make sure that you have thought about it carefully and that you're willing to take on the possible risks that come with this big change.

10. Go for an interview and see how it feels

Just remember that deciding to go for an interview and deciding to leave for a new job are two totally separate choices. An interview will give you a taste of how it might feel to work someplace else. Try it and see what you learn about the situation. Your gut instinct is likely to kick in, and you might be surprised at what it tells you!