Disliking Your Job

If more often than not, you wake up in the morning loathing what you have to do that day, you should probably start looking for other things to do. What I'm implying here is that if you find out that you dislike or even hate your job, you should probably start looking for other ways to contribute to society.

How do you know that you dislike or even hate your job? If in 4 days out of the 5 day work week, you would rather not go to work, you dislike your job. That single day you like pun because it's a Friday, and you already have the weekend in mind, so it doesn't really count.

I've been fortunate enough to know what it feels like to wake up in the morning and fully look forward to what I had to do that day, and those were the days of me working as a social media manager for a think tank organisation. I hope to recapture that feeling again one day.

Not to say that I don't like teaching. I love doing it. It's just everything else that doesn't involve teaching that sometimes leads to me wanting to stay in bed rather than face the work day ahead. But it doesn't happen everyday. Once a week, probably, paling kerap pun. But of course, once I enter a class and get to teaching and hanging out with friends at school, I'm good with the world.

This post wasn't supposed to be about me. Let's get back on track.

So you've got a full-time job, but you don't enjoy it, not one bit, right? What do you do?

Well, firstly, I'd advise you to find out what you do like doing. Note here that it needs to be "what you enjoy doing", not "what you want to be". Because you don't just want to change your job name. You want to do different things in your life, more enjoyable and/or fulfilling things. So figure that out first. Do you want to write? Or talk all day? Or travel? Or make websites? Or bake cakes?

So now you've figured out what you want to do. Then what? You figure out how much you need to keep yourself out of the red for the amount of time you need to get yourself started. Let's say you decide that you want to bake cupcakes. So you need time to come up with a range of products, a way to sell and market your cupcakes (instashops are a popular way to get your products out there at a minimal cost) and time for your business to grow until it becomes self-sustaining. All that time spent being alive will cost you money, not to mention the money you need to bake your cupcakes. If you have a family to support, you need to factor that into your tally as well. Estimate how much money you need to keep being a functional human being for that amount of time, and then add five thousand bucks more into that total, just in case. You now have a target amount. (Note that not everyone wants to bake cupcakes, so depending on what you want to do, the target amount shall vary significantly. If you decide to take up another job that guarantees a consistent paycheque, then you wouldn't need this capital.)

Work at your old job and save up until you have that target amount. Once you have collected that much, then only should you resign from your old job. This is to ensure that you will still be able to survive after resigning from a job you've depended on for so long.

But first thing's first, of course. Find out what you want to do, and pursue it. Put safety nets around you if you need them, and jump. If it's what your heart desires, than go for it.