Are you dreading your job at the moment? 😓
5 tips to get out of work slump
When you feel like your job no longer serves you, it’s easy to feel helpless. Worse, it could affect other aspects of your life outside of work.
Before you think of handing out that resignation letter, here are some tips to overcome work slump:
1. Find out why you’re struggling
Finding out the core problem helps you decide how to resolve it in the first place. Pay attention to how you’re feeling when executing your task: can you pinpoint what exactly puts you on edge?
There might be several reasons why you’re feeling bored at your job: Is your role no longer challenging? Maybe you’ve been doing it for a long time. Are you not getting or anything new by continuing the same role? Maybe you’re doing it for the sake of doing it?
2. Have some honest talk with yourself
After doing a certain work for an extended period of time, we start knowing which parts of our job that we like, or which parts are less interesting.
How much you enjoy (or hate) your job actually points you to the reason you’re starting to grow bored of it, and even to the real things that you deeply want to do but haven’t acted upon.
Try to ask yourself some honest questions. This list might help:
What would your ideal day look like?
What would your perfect job be? Why?
When are you happiest while doing your job, and when are you most devastated? What makes it enjoyable/daunting?
What do you like to do to get away from work? Why do you turn into these? Does it say something about your unexplored passion?
3. Ask for second opinions
When the reality about a job doesn’t match your expectation, it helps to turn to other people for second opinions. Too often, we’re trapped in a routine that we forget to look for new alleys to explore our scope of work.Â
Speaking to your manager or another colleague who’s been in the field longer could help, as they are able to provide you with their experiences, the good, and the bad of the job. This helps put things into perspective, to see how you’re doing and what could be improved.Â
4. Add some variety
One of the most common reasons people get stuck in a slump: the boredom of continuously doing the same thing over and over again. How about changing the landscape a little?
It doesn’t have to be something extreme like instantly changing job or dramatically altering your priorities—just doing something outside of your normal working routine will do.
Try to set new goals that still correlate with your position. This could be working with another team for a new project. Giving yourself new challenges sets your mind afresh, and it kickstarts your brain to start working in a new direction.
5. Take a break
Another common reason of work slump is the continuous work cycle. Maybe the reason you’re stuck in a rut is that you’ve been grinding nonstop with barely time to take some deep breath, never leaving your desk for longer than an hour at a time. Say, does a long weekend at a cottage by the beach sound heavenly?
Take a vacation, retreat to the countryside, pick up a new book; anything that removes you from the work setting, even if it’s just for a while. It’s a wonder what distancing yourself from routine could do to you!
We know those days when the thought of getting up to work devastates us. At some point, even your wonderful job could push you to the edge of boredom.
Getting out of work slump doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re currently stuck in this phase, we hope you can find your way out. Hopefully, some of these tips will help!
Thanks for reading with us, and we’ll see you next week 👋