9 Reasons to Love the Job You Have

Multi-ethnic businesswomen chatting during a work coffee break

Ariel Skelley / Getty Images

Are you less than positive about your current job? Feel bad about having to come to work every morning? Are you bored, frustrated, or just plain weary? Whatever your case may be, you really need to turn that around. Your job takes enormous amounts of energy and time. Consequently, for happiness in life and positive mental health, you need to love the job you have. Here are nine reasons why:

You Deserve Work That You Love

That’s right. Deserve. Every employee deserves to love, if not their current job, their work. If you believe this, take a look at that current job and figure out the aspects of the job or work that you love.

Then decide how you will approach your job in a way that maximizes the time and energy that you expand on those tasks or goals. You will never love every aspect of your work, but you can change your mental focus from hating your job to making it work that you love.

  • Talk to your boss about changing your job description to emphasize the aspects of your job that you are good at and love.
  • Talk with your coworkers to find out where their interests lie. Perhaps you can trade off a component of your job that you dislike. Maybe a coworker would enjoy something that you hate.

Having an Income Is Better Than Feeling Frustrated and Broke

Make the best of bad circumstances while you job search. You want to make certain that you have a serious job offer before you resign from your current employer. Focus on the fact that you are making money for doing the job. Make sure that your performance doesn't slip to the point at which your employer decides to fire you.

It is much easier to find a new job when you are currently employed. Unemployed Americans find that the longer they are unemployed, the more employers look at their credentials with suspicion. Employers like to see stability and stamina on resumes or they assume that you'll leave their employ quickly, too.

And yes, covert discrimination does exist, so particularly if you are over 40, make sure that you have the next opportunity in hand. You will also want to be prepared to answer every prospective employer's interview question about why you want to leave your current job in a positive, uplifting, forward-thinking way.

The Grass Is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence

Remember that your next job will have its own set of problems. A colleague, Marcia Purse, says, "What an important truth. My dad told me that while I was still living at home and wanting to quitmy first office job because I was so miserable.

He said, 'No, because you need to learn to stick with something,' and he also told me to learn to deal with problems because every job has them. A few years later, when I was again utterly miserable at a job, I remembered these words. So, I worked to solve the problems instead of quitting. I wound up working at that company for 23 years," Purse said.

Sometimes it's better to have a set of problems, a bad boss, or unchallenging work that you know and can work to turn around. You never know, for sure, what awaits you in your next job. So, if you're looking, take the time to look and assess with care.

Because to Change Jobs Is Not a Current Option

A reader recently complained that no other job like the one she had even existed within 50 miles of her home because her work was specialized. She felt her children needed her more than she needed to spend a couple of hours commuting each day.

Her husband had a stable job that he loved that brought in the bulk of their income. She felt stuck because of all of her life circumstances—at least for now. She can turn this situation around by taking the actions recommended in several of the other whys listed here.

The possibility that she consider other career options that would be more children friendly is also an option. But, in the meantime, especially because of all of her personal circumstances, she's going to work to love the job she has.

You Want to Minimize Work-Related Stress and Potential Illness

People who hate what they do every day are experiencing stress and anxiety 24 hours a day. They tend to focus on all of the bad parts of their job and life to the point where they miss the good parts.

People who experience a lot of work-related stress are also prone to illness. Stress expert Elizabeth Scott says, “According to a study by the British Medical Journal, chronic stress has been linked to the development of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as other conditions.

This is because they found a link between chronic job stress and metabolic syndrome. A group of factors that, together, increase the risk of several diseases, including high blood pressure, insulin resistance, central obesity (excessive abdominal fat, which has been linked to increased cortisol in the bloodstream, as well as several other health problems).

They found that greater levels of job stress increased people’s chances of developing metabolic syndrome: the higher the stress level, the greater the chance of developing metabolic syndrome. Workers who have higher levels of job stress experience a greater incidence of the common cold, and call in sick more often.” You face serious physical and mental health problems if you spend every day at a job that you hate.

You Want to Minimize Work-Related Stress and Potential Illness

Think that only you are affected if you hate your job? That’s not possible because you come home every day and talk about how much you hate your job. This adds stress and anxiety to the days of your family members.

Even if you don’t talk about it, your family members love you, and they hate to see you so sad. When you hate your job, you have less energy for the other important components of your life: family, exercise, fun, friends, and hobbies. In a​ worst-case scenario, a company opened a second location in a distant state and transferred twenty married couples to work at the new location. ​

When anything went wrong at work, no respite existed at home. The double negative feelings interacted and festered and affected employee morale at work. And, there were no other employees to deflect the unhappiness.

People Change Jobs Because They Won't Change Themselves

Sometimes it's not the job that needs to change; it's you. No matter where your bad attitude or outlook came from, you need to look at all aspects of your job to figure out what you can and can't change.

If you focus on what you can't control, you'll wallow in your misery, affect the morale of coworkers, and eventually, lose your job. We, humans, have such a bad habit of focusing on the worst factors. If you concentrate on the positive factors, instead, you'll succeed. And who knows, maybe you will see things differently and come to love the job you have.

Express Your Magnificent Capabilities and Skills

If you’re an employee, your ego and self-image are tied tightly into how successfully you perform on the job. Think about how you answer the question from a new acquaintance, “what do you do?” If you regard your job as a misery, you are not tapping into all of your best talents and skills.

And, if you’re not putting forth your best, even in trying situations, you are not celebrating who you are, what you bring to the workplace, That’s sad. Look at the job you have and decide where you can excel. Take joy in your accomplishments and how you express your talents and inner joy at work.

What a waste if you focus on what you can’t do and what you hate. Spend your time on what you can influence and what you can create.

Create the Opportunity to Continue to Grow Your Skills and Experiences

Most people want to succeed at work. But, when your focus is on how intensely you dislike your job, you are challenged to continue developing your skills.

Even if you dislike what you are doing, you need to focus on the aspects of your skills and experiences that you want to keep growing - even in less than ideal circumstances.

Don't waste your opportunity to grow because you don't like your job. Get all that you can get from it by seizing the opportunity to continue to develop your skills.