Life Is Too Short to Have the Wrong Job

Life is too short to have the wrong job, to invest all your time and effort into something that leads to unhappiness, anxiety, and frustration instead providing a sense of welfare and identity.

We all know how complicated it is to find the “ideal job” these days, a job that we’ve identified with and studied for. In fact, in most cases, we are content to simply have a job, whatever it is, since social and economic trends have changed so much and the demand for work does not at all reflect the amount of work available.

Even though you’re making a living, working the wrong job can lead you to feel apathetic and hopeless.

Living with the wrong job

Many of us can work one wrong job after another, until we finally end up at a job that we identify with, that makes us happy. But it’s more complicated when we invest an entire work day on one task or activity that makes us feel frustrated instead of making us grow.

However, according to a study carried out by the University of Rhode Island, you can feel satisfied with your job even if it’s not the job you studied for. Job satisfaction is based on performance and quality of life.

On the other hand, like many of us have probably experienced at some point, working at the wrong job for a long period of time can lead to many different complicated situations.

The consequences of working at the wrong job

• Feeling like you’re not contributing to anything; neither your own work environment, nor society in general, nor yourself.
• Frustration, stress, and a low quality of life that impacts your personal relationships.
• Feeling stagnant, as though you’re not advancing in any direction.
• Lack of recognition from your employers and organizational support for the work that you do.
• A decrease in self-esteem upon seeing little or negative results for big efforts. This occurs at both the economic and personal level.

Combining capacity and vocation to find the ideal job

We know that it’s not easy to find the ideal job, or at least one that makes us feel satisfied with ourselves and our contributions to society. In some way, we all must adapt to a changing environment, or at least offer something innovative that can be demanded by the environment.

It’s not easy to do, and that’s why it’s worth reflecting on some interesting points that educator and professor Sir Ken Robinson brought up in his interesting book, The Element.

The Element is the point where the things we’re good at and the things we like to do come together. This is the most suitable environment for finding a satisfying job.

If you don’t learn to make mistakes, you’ll never think of anything original

Working at the wrong job one after another has at least one positive aspect: you’ll discover where your limit is, what you’re prepared to accept and what you’re not prepared to accept.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we should accept both our mistakes and our limitations. They’re an invitation for change, something we should take advantage of as realistically and creatively as we can.

Creativity is applied intelligence

Being creative in the workplace involves offering a product that’s different and more valuable than the ones that already exist. However, it’s important to remember that in order to be creative, you must be active, receptive to the environment, and reflective; and you must connect with yourself and everything around you.

Your life is not determined by what happens to you, but by how you respond to it

When some people get fired, they get stuck, without knowing how to react or which direction to take. However, the way you react to this kind of situation will determine your direction in life.

You can be lucky in a given moment, sure, but you should take advantage of times of luck, as well as times of adversity. Instead of remaining inactive, you should stimulate your intuition, create opportunities, and reformulate your ideas, perspectives, and even values.