We have to talk …Where is this going?
Probably, most of you have either heard or said this phrase. You also know what follows is most likely neither something you want to say nor hear. It’s uncomfortable!
Tim Ferris said: “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”
You will make it in life when you manage to have uncomfortable conversations, first and foremost, with yourself. Stop running away!
Are you working at a dead-end job?
A dead-end job is where there are small to no opportunities for career development. That’s how most career experts define it.
To me, it’s more than that.
Having a victim mindset is not helpful; it’s not always the employers’ fault!
On top of working with the wrong employer, You could be in a dead-end job because you’re unconsciously not liking the company or the team. Or worst, you’re not willing to continue your life working at that specific job or field.
In other words, it’s not what you want to do with your life.
Identifying the valid reasons for calling your work a dead-end job is crucial. It will allow you to know your inclinations and avoid making wrong choices in the future.
I classify the reasons under three categories. Personal, Team, and company
In the case of a small company, team and company are the same. Inside firms with 5 or fewer employees, usually 50 percent of the group are founders. The company culture will coincide with the founders’ values. Usually, the founders will design everything to fit their personal preferences. But that’s a topic for another day!
To me, a dead-end job means the job isn’t for you, for the long term. You better start thinking of making a move. Think about it; you spend 30% of your life working. Where is this going?
Here is how you can decide it’s time.
In this article, I will only focus on signs you experience within yourself that could mean you are working at a dead-end job. I don’t want to focus on reasons outside of you ( team members, company culture) because I believe in 100% ownership. We are not blaming anyone.
If you feel that your company and team members are making you struggle at your job, you are not a tree. You can move away. However, you will only be able to create different job circumstances after you change yourself and how you see the world.
“ When we change the things we look at change.” Wayne Dayer
Here are three significant signs to look for
1. You don’t know yourself
I don’t know myself. Ok! How do I know that I don’t know?
Put simply, when you don’t provide a clear personal answer to the question, why do you work at a specific job? Other than to pay the bills
when you are similar to 98% of the population, your parents signed you up in the kinder garden, then in primary school, and told you you have to study hard to get an excellent job. The usual! The normal!
You never had the time or option to self-reflect about what you really want to do with your life.
Your job doesn’t have a clear meaning. Other than making money to buy food for you and your family, pay for a vacation, and a few necessary luxuries items, or the worst of the worst, to show people who hate you that you’ve made it.
You don’t have any strong and compelling motive behind your work.
When you know yourself deeply, your job will be either what you genuinely want or it will be a means to get to another desired end.
For example, you work a 9 to 5 job to reach financial security and build another business outside your working hours.
The purpose of your job is to gain enough experience to transition to opening your firm.
The purpose of your job is to help you pay for a personal trainer because you desire to become a tennis champion.
2. You have different interests
One of the basic human needs is progress. It’s natural for humans to search for growth and improvement. As a consequence, people who are working at the right job for them look for ways to improve almost daily.
One clear sign you are working in the wrong field is that you have different interests. You don’t seem to look for areas of continuous improvement in your topic of expertise, you only do your job, and you forget about it between 5 pm and 9 am.
Let’s say you are a biomedical engineer, the field is constantly changing and growing, but you seem to do the only minimum to get the job done.
When you go home, you read blogs about NFTs, watch videos about alternative investing, and attend crypto events. It’s a sign!
Your natural inclination is related to digital currencies and the new alternative way of investing.
It’s clear. You don’t want to grow at your current job because it’s not your element.
3. You feel like shit
You all know the famous feeling “Monday’s blues,” but actually, it starts on Sundays. I call it “Empty Sundays,”; that feeling of emptiness you experience on Sunday afternoon.
The weekend starts cooling off, and you remember that you must do the groceries, do your laundry and prepare food for the week. You experience a terrible feeling in your gut when you remember that you must wake up early the next day and rush to the office.
You feel terrible when you are working, and you feel awful when you are not working. It feels like a nightmare to you.
You can ignore it and keep wasting your life living like a zombie.
Your inner compass tells you this is not what you are meant to be or do. There is another path for you.
Please don’t ignore it!