5 Essential Ingredients To Love Your Job

Do you ever hear other people say they love their job and wonder how on earth that could be possible?! Or perhaps you’ve had times through your career when you’ve been one of those people but over the years you’ve spiralled into a state of tolerance, routine or pure loathing. 

You know it’s bad when your Sunday is consumed by that feeling of dread and you want nothing more than to have at least one more day off where you can enjoy life. 

Yet you have no idea how you got here nor how to get out. 

It’s a common story, and so how DO you become one of those people who can say ‘I love my job!’  

Here’s 5 things you need to ensure you have... 

1.Trusting Relationships 

Trust is the foundation of any effective and enjoyable relationship, and it’s critical in the workplace. Building trusting relationships with your colleagues, subordinates, managers and stakeholders isn’t necessarily an overnight win, it can take time to get it right. But that time and effort invested in doing so shouldn’t be overlooked and should be an absolute priority if you are starting in a new role or if you’re currently working in an environment where trust doesn’t exist.  

Think about someone in your life who you deeply trust and imagine having that level of relationship in your working days. You can quickly see how imperative this aspect is to get closer to loving your job.  

2. Understand Your Impact And Purpose

Have a clear understanding of the impact your work has. Appreciate that without you playing your part, the company wouldn’t be able to meet it’s overall objectives and goals, no matter how small you consider your part to be. Often this is about looking beyond what you see at surface level and considering what does my work really mean? What does my work actually allow the next person or customer to do, and the next and so on? This way you can start to see how the chain of events can compound only increasing your appreciation for how significant your impact is. 

A great example I heard once was about a group of cleaners in a hospital. When asked what they do for work, some of the cleaners shared that they ‘helped to save lives’ while others only saw themselves as ‘just a cleaner in a hospital’. Those who shared that they helped save lives had made the link about the impact their work truly has on infection control, and survival rates in hospitals. 

Consider how you may love your job if you can find those links for the impact, you’re making on the world around you. 

3. Psychological Safety  

When you work in an environment where psychological safety is present, you can more confidently speak your mind, be your authentic self, and ask questions without fear of backlash or negative consequence. A psychological safe environment at work allows you to feel comfortable and confident in your work, which can result in you feeling more creative, innovative and less constrained by fear.  

A much more enjoyable and relaxed mindset for all.  
 

4. Play To Your Strengths 

Have you ever wondered why you enjoy certain aspects of your role more than others? Or why you jump towards certain tasks on your to do list far before others? It’s likely that you prefer to do work that you are good at. Work that plays to and leverages your strengths is more enjoyable than work that we find to be too much of a challenge. 

When you hate a large majority of your work therefore, it’s worth checking whether you’re leaning on your strengths enough. If not, you can look to find ways to incorporate ways to bring more of what you’re good at into your days, as well as seek to upskill on areas you may struggle with. Once you’ve built the know-how, you may find you enjoy the work more.  

If all of your work is difficult and not enjoyable, it may be time to consider a change. 

5. Align Your Values And Motivational Needs  

It’s crucial to ensure that the environment you’re working in aligns to your personal needs, both in terms of your values and those things that keep you motivated. This means understanding your own needs first, and then assessing your prospective employer and leadership style against them.  

You may be hard pressed to get 100% of your needs met in one employer, so be mindful to know what is priority to you and what is negotiable versus not. There will likely be things that you can more happily compromise on in exchange for other, more important aspects, if you need to. 

Knowing what these are can help you not only choose the right employer to begin with, but is also a easy way to pin-point any issues arising along the way. 

If a sense of fulfilment drops, or you find yourself frustrated or angry about a situation, ask yourself some reflective questions to gauge what value or motivational need may be being compromised so that you can find out how you can fix the situation. 

If you need support in identifying your personal values and priorities, you can download a FREE worksheet that I use with my clients here. 

So there you have it, 5 Key Ingredients To Loving Your Job. You can see how it’s often far more than just the job title or role function itself and is a far more holistic approach to take to ensure that you can be one of those people that says ‘I love my job!’ 

If you’d like to dig deeper on these, or any other areas of your career, to increase your job satisfaction you can learn more about the coaching solutions I offer here.