What to Do When You Dislike Your Job

Let’s face it, we’re not always going to be in our dream job, and at times, we might even dislike the job we’re in or the company we work for. Rather than view your job experience as a waste of time, or hate every minute you’re at work, there are ways to make it more tolerable and even beneficial for you and your career.

If you find yourself disliking your job, here are five things to focus on to improve your work experience.

Aspects of the job you enjoy. Rather than think about how much you dislike your job, focus your attention on the parts of the job that you appreciate. There are many things in our work that we cannot control but we can shape the way we think about our work and focus on the positives.

Building good relationships. Developing effective working relationships is a skill that transfers well to other jobs. Use your unpleasant experience to leaner to work with a variety of people with a variety of skill sets. This experience will serve you well wherever you end up in your career.

Expanding your skills. Your job, even if you hate it, can provide opportunities to develop and expand your skill set, either through on-the-job training, courses or classes, or by moving to another department. Take advantage of these opportunities to grow in your knowledge of the industry and to develop new skills that can be useful in another job.

The challenge of staying positive. It can be difficult to stay positive in a job you dislike and, yet, a positive approach to you job and career is critical to future success. Being in a job that challenges your ability to be positive will help you in future jobs, and help you develop the strategies necessary to maintaining a positive approach to whatever your job (or life) throws at you.

Building character. Like the challenge of staying positive, is the opportunity a job you dislike provides for building character by getting up daily and heading off to do great work and build positive relationships despite how you feel about your job. Take this as a challenge to deepen your character and you’ll become a better person and a better employee.