Hate Your Job, Miserable, and No One Will Hire You?

Hate Your Job, Miserable, and No One Will Hire You

Does this describe you: you hate your job, you’re miserable, and you wonder why no one will hire you?

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Retirement Answer Man, hosted by my good friend Roger Whitney. In episode 133 – Economic Growth, the Upcoming Election, Life Satisfaction, Roger answered several listener’s questions.

The 3rd question was from Mary and, if you do not want to listen to the whole podcast, it starts at about 21:30 into the episode.

Mary is:

• 61 years old
• miserable
• 2.9 years away from retirement

She asks, does she stick it out (being miserable) and retire on time or find another job, having to give up some of her pension benefits? She assumes she will be less miserable if she finds a new job.

Roger says this is a money versus quality of life decision. While I think this is true, I believe she suffers from MSU syndrome. If you are wondering what MSU syndrome is, read this post –> Do You Suffer from Make Stuff Up Disorder?.

She is miserable and thinks someone will hire her.

Let me paint this scenario. You were hiring and the person in front of you is obviously are miserable in their current job. You may think you can hide it but… you can’t.

Would you hire this person?

NO!

This happened to me early in my career.

I hated my job at IBM.

The project I was working on was in the ditch and I hated what I did.

A position at CSC appeared in a trade magazine and applied. I did get an interview.

Did they hire me? NO. They never even contacted me after the interview.

I would not have hired me. I was miserable and it showed.

What to Do When You Are Miserable

One of my mantras is I want my client to:

Run towards a new job and  don’t run away from the current job

In this case, Mary needs to figure out what is making her so miserable in her current job and, at least, attempt to fix it. Only after she understands what is making her miserable should she attempt to find another job.

I use the process from the book, Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential AND HOW YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOURS by Shirzad Charmine. I briefly reviewed this book in the post, Top 5 Career Books that have Nothing to do with Careers.

The author tells us we have two sides of our brain:

• Positive, or the sage side
• Negative, or the saboteurs’ side (there are 10 saboteurs)

Saboteurs

The 10 saboteurs are:

• Judge
• Avoider
• Controller
• Hyper-Achiever
• Hyper-Rational
• Hyper-Vigilant
• Pleaser
• Restless
• Stickler
• Victim

The idea is to spend significantly more time on the positive or sage side of the brain than the negative or saboteur side. You do that by identifying your primary saboteurs, naming them and learning to spot them when they pop up in your thinking.

You can learn more about the saboteurs and find your primary saboteurs by taking the Positive Intelligence Assessment. By the way, it is free.

Let me give you an example. I have a client who I will call Helen. Helen’s biggest saboteur is her judge. She has named her judge saboteur Stresszilla.

Whenever Helen finds herself judging herself, telling herself she is not good enough or telling herself that she is not as good as someone else in the office, she can now quickly identify Stresszilla in her head.

It is kind of like the cartoons when Homer Simpson is trying to make a decision. With the good angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.

Helen can now spot Stresszilla on her shoulder and tell her to go away.

Helen is reaching the point where she is not as miserable at work. She is not exactly happy, but the stress levels are much lower. She can now approach a job search feeling better about herself.

Helen has managed to strengthen her sage and weaken her saboteurs.

PQ Gym

One way to train the brain is to go the PQ Gym. I have found doing PQ reps to be very helpful in turning off the brain when a saboteur has positioned itself on my shoulder.

You can learn more about PQ reps from the Positive Intelligence Resource page and click on PQ Gym.

This is a very short description of how I have helped my clients get out of stress and be more hirable. I suggest you get the book  Positive Intelligence and give it a try.

Are you miserable at work?

Are you ready to do something about it?

Marc Miller  

Like What Your Read? Get Career Pivot Insights

Do You Need Help With ...

Check out our Help Center where you have access to 14 different content portals.