Comment détester moins de travail? (document en anglais)

HOW TO HATE YOUR JOB LESS

In 2010, a week after graduating college, I got an offer from an ad agency for what I thought was my dream job.

It paid well. The agency was hip, creative, and known on a national scale. The people were incredibly intelligent, helpful and treated me with respect.

And after about a month, I freaking hated it.

I was overworked (the only Assistant Media Planner on not one but two accounts) with two bosses that were fighting for my time. My days quickly filled up with phone calls from eager media reps trying to weasel me into buying space with them, Excel formulas that were more complicated than my college calculus homework, and maintaining the exhausting appearance that planning a $250K ad budget as a 21-year-old by myself didn’t scare me absolutely shitless.

None of that was the fault of the agency – they were running a business and all of those tasks are necessary to the operation. The fault was mine. I was young and naive and I thought that the place I was working was more important than my actual role. Boy was I wrong.

Whether we like it or not, our work takes up a pretty large chunk of our lives. So if you hate it, it matters. If you’re in a position that doesn’t utilize your best skills and doesn’t speak to your values, it matters.

But this post isn’t about doing work that makes you come alive. (A topic for another day.)

This post is about what to do in the mean time until you figure out HOW to be doing work that makes you come alive. It’s about how to hate your job less.

Back in 2010, there was a stretch where I came home every day and I cried. Not even because my days were that bad. Just because the dissonance between the life I was the living and the life I wanted to live was too much to bear. It weighed on me, and that weight manifested itself in my emotions.

I distinctly remember having a phone call with Jason one night after what seemed like an eternity of tearful calls night after night. He said to me, “Your situation is not going to change itself. It’s up to you to make your days different.”

I realized that I had been waiting for someone or something to save me. I dreamed about a gallant knight from the creative department riding over to my desk on a white horse and saying “Hop on m’lady. You don’t belong here” and riding me back to the “fun” part of the office. I fantasized about getting an email in the middle of the day from some amazing artist asking me to be their young protege (despite the fact that I had never really revealed to many people that I was even creative… whatever, they just KNEW okay.)

I could have spent years (YEARS!) waiting for those things to happen. But instead I decided to do something about it.

If you’re there right now, please know that I understand what you’re feeling. You know you have a greater purpose inside you and it may feel like that inner spark will never see the light of day. But I’m telling you right now…

It is completely within your control to do the work that you love.

But it doesn’t happen by magic and it does’t happen in an instant. Until you get there, here are three things you can do to avoid crying every day.

1. Get specific about your exit strategy.

What you want to be doing instead of your current job? I mean what would really make you excited to get out of bed? Avoid broad sweeping titles like “I want to write about food” or “I want to work in fashion” or “I would love to work for myself.” Instead try “I want to have my own food column for a major lifestyle website” or “I want to become a retail buyer for XYZ store” or “I want to do freelance wedding invitation design full time.”

Getting specific will do two things for you. First, it will make it easier to come up with actionable steps to reach that goal. Second, it will give you something tangible and concrete to focus on while you’re in your current position. You’ll be amazed at how your attitude will change once you have a “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Once

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