I hate my job…
So, why don’t you quit then?
I can’t just quit, it’s not that simple.
Ok then, don’t quit. It’s just your fucking life we’re talking about here.
As we move into the end of the year and the season where we naturally take stock, reflect on the year behind us and look to the year ahead, this statement often comes to mind when I think of all the people out there unsatisfied with their lives. They’ll bitch and whine about their situation, but when the suggestion comes to take ownership and change it, they’re unwilling.
Why? Why is it so hard for most people to change a situation they obviously don’t like?
Allow me to explain…
If you hate your job, there’s a good chance you’ll try and claw back as much time as you can after work to drink, game, watch TV, whatever you find pleasurable. It’s similar to people living in poverty: they’ll spend what little money they have on cigarettes and booze that they can’t afford because it’s the one thing that makes them feel good and takes the edge off.
It’s both borne of a scarcity mindset that you have to maximise what little you have, and the idea that you can somehow offset something you dislike with something you’d prefer.
But there’s a trade-off here, one most people always choose the wrong side of. See, you can choose to maximise your personal time and continue to coast in the job you don’t like, but the problem is, nothing will change. In fact, you’re likely to end up worse off, because inflation and the fast pace of your economy means that the people who aren’t getting promoted or payrises are going to end up doing it harder.
The other side of that trade-off is the abundance mindset…
I’m going to sacrifice a bit of that personal time to work for something better. I’m happy to sacrifice it because when I get that job I like, I can enjoy both work and personal time. I get to have it all.
It’s that black and white guys, there are no shades of grey here. You can choose to sacrifice a bit of enjoyment now for a life changing level of enthusiasm both in your job and your personal life, or you can cling to the free time you have now while life continues to get more difficult and the monotony at work gets even worse than it is now.
But there’s another variable that makes the case for sacrificing some of that free time even stronger: the thrill of progress. See, you’re probably thinking that you have to sacrifice fun time right now for work time, and that you don’t get to reap the rewards in the future. That’s not the case, because the mere act of improving, of working towards something better in life, that alone brings a level of excitement and enthusiasm into your life.
And none of this is limited to work. Sacrificing a little bit now for big rewards in the future applies to basically everything in life:
Finances
Relationships
Health
Living space
Creative pursuits
And this is where the quote I opened up with comes into play. The power to turn things around is entirely on you - it just requires that you make some level of sacrifice to do it. It might take as little as a month or as long as a couple of years before you get to that place you want to be, but the common thing you’ll find with people that have done it is that none of them regret the time they sacrificed to make it happen.
So make the damn sacrifice. And if you’re not willing to, then don’t bitch that your life isn’t what you want.
For some extra help, here’s my most recent video where I go into how I stayed positive while I worked a job I hated and looked for something better:
On that note, let’s finish off with something that Zach Pogrob wrote in his newsletter this week:
If you feel stuck in life, I highly recommend shaving your head and signing up for something extreme (marathon, bodybuilding, race, fight etc).
It’s a hard reset on how you view yourself. You’re a new person. You’re a new athlete. And you rapidly feel, look and become unrecognizable. I did this about 2 months ago, and cut 20 pounds with running.
Sometimes, you need to jerk the wheel of life, drive off road, fight to survive on the way down, just to land peacefully on a new path. The new path will take you somewhere beautiful.