Questions to Ask Yourself When Unhappy at Work

Job satisfaction is often a key piece of feeling satisfied with your life as a whole. Of course, you want to feel good about your career and feel fulfilled when you come home after a long day at work. Unfortunately, that may not always be how you feel at the end of the workday. When we feel unhappy at work, it’s important to explore what might be happening beneath the surface. Like many emotional health concerns, intentional reflection and maintaining balance often help bring clarity.

Reflecting on Your Career Journey

Let’s examine this a bit further: you have a job at which you spend the majority of your time, and you often spend more time with co-workers and managers than you do with your friends and family. Over the years, you may have invested significant time and effort in studying and discovering your career path. Perhaps you knew right away what you wanted, maybe it took you some time to figure it out, maybe you are still unsure.

All of this time and energy you give to this pursuit means it should ideally bring you some level of joy. However, it’s up to you to define what that joy looks like, and to pay attention to the balance between frustration and satisfaction in your work. It’s easy to catastrophize after a particularly bad day or week, so maintaining perspective is essential.

Questions to Identify Job Dissatisfaction

Here are some questions to help you identify what is causing your unhappiness at work and whether it is significant enough to consider exploring other career options:

• Am I miserable every day at work?
• Could this just be a bad day, or is it a consistent pattern?
• What is making me unhappy in my job?
• Is it something that is changeable, such as needing to address a concern with upper management or needing to advocate for yourself more? Or is it something harder to change, like an entrenched workplace culture or a lack of interest in my primary tasks?
• Does this job give me more than it takes, or do I feel drained most days?
• At the end of the day, was the effort worth it? Did I earn enough to meet my goals? Did I help someone in a way that felt meaningful? Did you learn something new? What do you get out of this job, the tangibles and intangibles?
• Is there opportunity for growth in my current role?
• Sometimes we become disinterested in our work because it may be time to move up. Have you learned most of what you feel is necessary for the job and are looking for a new challenge? Maybe it’s time to ask about that next step at your company.
• What aspects of my work bring me genuine joy?
• Which aspects of my work do I truly enjoy? Are the benefits meeting my expectations? Do I find satisfaction in my daily tasks? Am I able to engage in creative work that fulfills me? Overall, how do the positive aspects of my job compare to the challenges or drawbacks?

Taking Stock and Moving Forward

The purpose of these questions is to help you assess what is causing dissatisfaction and identify what truly matters to you in your work. Often, we mistake temporary frustrations with complete dissatisfaction and begin to catastrophize. Perhaps more time is needed to learn new tasks you haven’t gotten comfortable with, or you simply need to be proactive and address concerns or advocate for yourself.

There is a lot that is needed at times to maintain satisfaction in any facet of our lives. We monitor our eating habits and exercise, and when we feel like our physical health is off track, we adjust. When we feel a relationship is stagnating or veering off course, we seek to understand why and try to adjust. Our careers require the same care. By giving these processes the time and space they need, it’s possible to address issues and find a resolution.

Finding the Small Successes

Most people do not feel they are setting the world on fire all day, every day, but that doesn’t mean you have to be miserable. Focus on the small successes in your day, perhaps you helped a young couple avoid a poor financial decision, improved a workflow that makes your colleagues’ jobs easier, brightened a client’s day, or engaged in the creative process you enjoy. This may not happen every day and it may not happen at a level that would make you feel like you are changing the world, but that doesn’t mean it was a waste.

Knowing When to Explore New Options

If your job gives you what you want in an amount you are satisfied with, then consider refocusing on excelling at what you are doing now and taking a tally of what you are able to do with it. Don’t forget to give yourself grace; maybe this is just a first step in the direction you want to go, and you just need more time to get there. However, if you feel deep down that your work is not aligned with what you truly want, you owe it to yourself to explore other options. It’s never too late to make a change.

If you would like to dive into these and other thoughts about your career more, please reach out to one of our therapists at Symmetry Counseling to schedule counseling sessions to discuss further.