Make no mistake about it, most people hate their jobs. That’s the bottom line. There are many people who show up to work on time, every day, but when you talk to them, it becomes quickly apparent that they’d rather be doing something else. These people are not all that rare.
In fact, they’re all too common. According to several surveys, more than 50% of Americans express some sort of discontent with their work. In fact, a disturbing percentage of people would quit immediately if given the chance.
Are you one of these people? Now, you may be thinking that your job is okay. You might even have convinced yourself that you are going to stick to what you’re doing until you retire. You might be playing games with yourself. You might be hanging on to something that you should leave behind. Why? It may be killing you.
Here are the 10 signs your job is killing you.
1: You are constantly tired
Do you find yourself constantly struggling with low energy levels? Pay attention to when this happens. If you notice that when you come home from work only to basically flop down on your mattress or on a sofa to play video games or sleep, your fatigue is caused by what you do at work.
You may not have a blue collar job that requires physical labor, but you may still be tired. How come? All the stress and all the mental work grinds you down physically. You may not break a sweat at work, but there’s enough stress on your intellect or emotions that you just are physically worn out when you get home.
This robs you of meaningful leisure time. Instead of having enough energy left over to spend precious time with your family or to do important things to improve your life, you’re just left exhausted at the end of the day.
2: You cannot focus after work
Have you ever noticed that after you go home, you can’t do much of anything? Now, even if you have a lot of physical energy, you might still find it hard to do anything after work. This has something to do with your willpower being sucked up by your job. You feel that after you’ve made some important decisions at work that you really don’t have enough willpower left for anything else.
You can’t even decide what kind of takeout food to order or what pizza topping to get delivered. Not surprisingly, a lot of decisions you make turn out to be bad ones. Why? You simply can’t focus correctly. You get mentally lazy and you become more impulsive. A lot of this has to do with the fact that your work has robbed you of your mental focus.
3: You cannot focus at work
Have you ever noticed that you spend a lot of time on email and at the end of the day you really can’t do any of the big stuff that needs to get done at work? You’re not alone. This happens to a lot of people.
What happens is they get sucked into all the “busy work” and have very little willpower left over for big decisions as well as for their life after work. They just get reduced to empty shells because they feel like they’re just chasing their tails doing “busy work” at the office.
4: You are always daydreaming
Do you find yourself daydreaming at work? You’re thinking of either taking a vacation or enjoying a financial freedom because you set up a successful business. Do you keep repeating this daydream fantasies day after day?
This is a serious danger sign because you’re not focusing on your work. You’re not focusing on the stuff that will help you earn more money or get promoted. Unfortunately, daydreaming is more interesting than your job.
You are able to explore new possibilities or opportunities you don’t think you’re getting from your current job. Also, when you daydream, you get a sense of emotional escape from the daily humiliation or the daily hassle your job has degenerated into.
You might feel like you’re just going through the motions at your job. Daydreaming enables you to get a nice emotional rush that allows you to overcome the negative emotions you may have about about your work.
5: You dont get enough sleep
Do you have bags under your eyes? Does it seem like regardless of how early you try to go to bed you can’t sleep a full 8 hours? Maybe a lot of this has to do with the fact that you keep thinking about stuff at work. Maybe you are obsessed about a report that you have to file.
Maybe you’re scared stiff about a deadline that’s coming up soon. You might not be all that pumped up about your work in general but you still let the small stuff get the better of you. Whatever the case may be, a lot of your mental energy is sucked up by your job that it cannot rest well enough for you to sleep well.
Maybe you can go to sleep, but you cannot get a full 8 hours of rest. This is a serious problem. You feel restless. You might even have the habit of constantly waking up earlier than usual. You feel groggy but instead of waking up fully, you just get up like a zombie. This can really take it out of you.
6: You dont look forward to going to work
Do you find yourself making all sorts of excuses to hang out at the house so you don’t have to go to work? Do you find yourself loitering at the parking lot because you don’t really want to go show up at your job? You’re not alone. This happens to a lot of people, and this has to do with your attitude towards work.
Maybe you had a bad experience with a raise you’re trying to get. Maybe your boss isn’t the most pleasant person in the world. Whatever the case may be, you just don’t look forward to go in to work.
Unfortunately, this drains energy. The more you resist going to work, the more tired and fatigued your mind gets. The more mental fatigue you suffer from, the lower the quality of your work.
7: Your work commute annoys you
Do you have to jump in your car or jump on some sort of public transport to go to work? Do the people there annoy you? Does the whole fact that you have to commute for a relatively long period of time irritate you? Don’t feel alone. A lot of people are in the same boat as you.
Maybe they don’t have problems with their job, but it’s the commute that really kills their soul. They start wondering about what they are doing with their lives. They start worrying. Or they get really bored. Regardless, their minds wander to places and consider topics they shouldn’t focus on.
There’s nothing more annoying than getting stuck in traffic or, worse yet, going down a highway along with tons of other cars like a sheep being led to a slaughter. You do this mindlessly, day in, day out.
8: You always feel you should be doing something else
Even if you’re having a good time with certain parts of your job, do you get this nagging feeling that your talents would be better used doing something else? If you get this constant feeling, this means that you are very dissatisfied with what you do for a living at a very deep level. You feel that your whole personality is not really being fully expressed in the livelihood that you have chosen.
9: You feel sorry about your potential
Do you see yourself looking at old pictures from college or high school? Do you look at your diploma and wonder what could have been? Does it seem like you are living far below your fullest potential? Maybe this is in terms of academics or intellectual pursuits. Maybe this is in terms of your physical hobbies like sports.
Do you feel that every day you spend at work, you stray farther and farther from the kind of life you should be enjoying? Does it seem like your best days are behind you? Do you get the feeling that you are stuck?
You still have potential. You can still turn your life around to the direction of your dreams. But you have to choose this. This is not just going to fall into your life. You can’t rely on luck or some sort of fortunate ‘big break’ to hand you the kind of life you could be living. You have to take initiative. You have to get the ball rolling. Sadly, most people can’t do this. They feel too stuck.
10: You would rather hang out with family and friends rather than work
Do you make all sorts of excuses to call friends and family while you are at work? Do you spend a lot of time checking personal email at your 9 to 5 job? This is a symptom of the fact that you’d rather hang out with friends or family than work.
There’s something about your work that turns you off. You feel that it’s not really fulfilling. You feel that it doesn’t really help you polish your full potential as a human being.
The Bottom Line
If you suffer from at least two of the signs above, then there’s a serious problem with your job. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, I know you probably are trying to get away from this realization, but your job is killing you at some level or another. Maybe it’s killing your hopes and dreams. Maybe it’s killing your perception of what you stand to offer the world.
Maybe it’s killing your self-esteem. Whatever the case may be, you know that there is something fundamentally wrong. You know that there’s something missing. You feel incomplete. You don’t feel fulfilled. You feel like you’re just chasing your tail day after day, each day being the exact same carbon copy of the day that preceded it. You feel that there’s really no rhyme nor reason in what you choose to do day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year.
The Bad News
If you keep at it, your job is going to kill you. You’re going to be a walking, empty shell of a person. You’ve wasted your best years because you did not invest in your soul. You did not invest in the part of yourself that looks to expand your horizons and you did not allow yourself to entertain your sense of adventure. You just look forward to your next vacation as you compartmentalize your life and look forward to your retirement.
Let me ask you, what happens next? Is that the kind of life you want to build for yourself? Even if you have a lot of money stored away, is that really worth trading your life for?
Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re trading your life for some vague notion of security. Wouldn’t you rather live the kind of life that you want based on your own terms?
The Solution
Thankfully, there is good news. Thanks to the internet, more and more people are enjoying the kind of life they want for themselves. We’re not just talking about financial freedom. We’re also talking about full personal freedom. Regardless of what hobby you want to do, you can do it.
Regardless of what kind of family time you want to enjoy with the most important people in your life, you can do it. This all boils down to building the right income system so your job doesn’t end up swallowing the rest of your life. Click here for the latest report on how to build a system that enables you to get your life back.
