Declaring Independence!
(In the Way You Think about Your Job)
Happy Independence Day!
I’m sure you’re loving this Monday holiday. Me, too. When holidays fall on Wednesday somehow they don’t seem the same. But this year the fourth occurring on a Monday gives us a sweet three day weekend. It’s the kind of Monday we all look forward to. But it’s nowhere near the way most of us feel about the other Monday’s in the year.
Here are the opening words to my new book, Is It Monday Already?! where I shine some light on those feelings many of us have about that place we spend over a quarter of our time every week – our jobs:
“You hate your job. Well, maybe it’s not that you “hate – hate” it. You just don’t look forward to it anymore, except on payday. Every week you dread Monday unless it’s a holiday; then that week, you don’t like Tuesday.”
A Gallup poll reflects the situation perfectly. Only 13 percent of workers in the industrialized nations surveyed felt ‘engaged’ at the job. Engagement reflects workers “psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organizations.” That’s a pretty sad statistic.
It’s a fact that American worker productivity has increased 400% since 1950. A large part of that can be credited to technology. But a significant factor is also the fact that the American workforce is doing more work with fewer people. Anyone who has lived through a RIF, whether corporate, government of non-profit organization knows someone always end up performing the job responsibilities of the people who were let go. They may later add employees, but trust that the volume of work is exponentially heavier.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a startling divergence of productivity and pay from 1973 to 2014, where productivity rose over 72 percent but worker pay rose only 9.2 percent. It’s no wonder many of us don’t have good feelings about going into the office every day.
The only options to make a change is to change how you view the situation or actually change jobs. Going to work each day with a negative attitude only hurts you, personally and professionally.
Having a negative outlook impacts you physically because unhappy people are less healthy than people who look at life positively. In addition, it’s been long established that happy people are more successful than unhappy ones.
On this day where we celebrate our country’s independence, I encourage you to declare your own independence in the way you think about going into the office tomorrow. Try to shift the attitude to a little gratitude about your situation.
RELATED READING: Appreciation Increases Satisfaction
THE NEW BOOK: Is It Monday Already?!
