Ever find yourself thinking Is it Friday yet?
One of the hallmarks of the wealthy is that they like or love what they do for a living. They look forward to each day. They look forward to work. They are passionate about what they do for a living.
Eighty-six percent in my study said they liked their job. Seven percent said they loved their job. Those who like or love their jobs make more money, accumulate more wealth and are happier than those who don’t like or love what they do for a living.
According to a 2012 survey conducted by “Big 4” accounting firm Deloitte, 80% of those surveyed did not like their jobs. In another survey conducted by Gallup in 2013, 63% of the 230,000 employees in the survey said they were unhappy with their jobs.
The reasons you hate your job:
- Zombie Work – Your work is boring. You do the same thing day in and day out.
- Colleagues – You don’t like your colleagues. You have little in common with them, they are much older than you, they are much younger than you or their personalities are opposite yours.
- You Hate Your Boss – You have a tyrant for a boss. These types of bosses are demanding, selfish, arrogant and have little interest in your opinions or feedback.
- Poor Management – Those you report to are not good mentors. They are not interested in helping you grow and improve as an individual. You feel like a ship out in the ocean, at work.
- Destructive Feedback – The feedback from others you work with is destructive feedback and not constructive feedback. Destructive feedback is focused on your flaws, errors and mistakes. You learn nothing from destructive feedback and do not improve or grow as an individual.
- Negative Environment – Those you work with gossip about each other. They see only problems. They complain, criticize or condemn other employees including their supervisors.
- Low Wages – You make barely enough to survive and this negatively affects your personal life. You can’t pay your bills. You can’t take vacations. You can’t afford decent housing or a decent car to get you back and forth from work. Every day is a financial struggle. Oftentimes this may be the result of being in an industry that is in decline.
- Under Utilized – You are not exploiting your innate talents or strengths at your current job.
- Travel/Commute – You may actually like your job, however, your job requires regular air travel or a long daily commute. Traveling and commuting can be very stressful and make you feel like you have little time left to actually live your life.
- Declining Industry – Your company is in a declining industry and not very profitable. Which translates into small raises, little to no bonus and very few incentives. You feel like you’re working for a dead end company in a dead end industry.
So, if you catch yourself asking Is it Friday yet? it’s because you don’t like your job. If you don’t like your job, you’ll never be happy and you’ll eke out a living, living paycheck to paycheck.
Finding a job that you like, in an industry that is growing, will make you happy. Plus you’ll devote more time to a job you like than to one you hate. As a result, you’ll do a better job and the extra effort you put into doing a good job will be reflected in the form of higher wages.
The people who perform the best get paid the most and those who perform the worst get paid the least or find themselves hunting for a new job.
Tom Corley is an accountant, financial planner and author of “Rich Kids: How to Raise Our Children to Be Happy and Successful in Life”, Effort-Less Wealth, Change Your Habits Change Your Life, Rich Habits Poor Habits and “Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals.”
This is an interesting and valid list. The important step is to focus on how to improve the situation. Our book “Career Aspirations” (available at Amazon.com) is designed to do just that. It provides a straightforward approach to determining the career factors that are important to you, as an individual, and practical steps in addressing them.