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Stop Complaining and List Three Things You LOVE About Your Job!

The grass might seem greener on the other side, but it's plenty green where you are

Rating: 5.0 (based on 8 reviews)
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I recently had coffee with a woman I'd just met. (We were introduced by a mutual friend.) She has just started a new job with a big local company and as soon as we sat down she went on a complaining rant:

There is too much office politics!

Too many meetings!

Too many rules and guidelines!

No freedom to do your own thing!

If you've worked for a large company -- and I have -- it was a pretty common list of complaints, all of which I could definitely relate to from my past experience. But as I listened to her, I had this eureka moment and I HAD to share it here:

As a do-everything-myself-entrepreneur, I secretely envied many of the things she was complaining about!

I miss having colleagues to distract me from my work sometimes.

I miss having meetings -- the good kind, the productive kind -- and the free lunches that often came with them.

I'd love for someone else to come up with some guidelines instead of it being all my responsibility.

I love the freedom to create and to come up with ideas and implement them, but it's exhausting and I miss having someone tell me what to do once in a while.

Moral of the story? Stop complaining about your job for a bit and make a list of three things you really like about it. (Good food at meetings counts, by the way.) The grass might always seem greener -- and I admit that it often does to me -- but your job might be very appealing to someone else at the same time.

About the Author: I am the co-founder of Work It, Mom!, a freshly minted entrepreneur, and an amateur writer.
Rating: 5.0 (based on 8 reviews)
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Comments
1. I love how close my job is to my house and the relaxing drive. 2. I love the 2 hour brake I get everyday (my pre-k naps :) ) 3. I have a large very, very nice classroom and plenty of freedom to do what I want with it and with my class.
1) I like the people (circa 50) I work with. Good chemistry. 2) For this area, it's a smooth commute. 3) I usually like what I do for my job (software-related). 4) Very key: benefits for my son as well as me. (Of course I have to contribute to medical.)
Mel  16th Feb
Nataly, Great article! I think this is so true.... we need to focus on the positive. There will always be negative and we need to walk away and not let it suck us up to the point where we forget there are many good things about our jobs.
Kate  15th Feb
so so true! sometimes i think we even forget that we like our jobs if we think about it - we get stuck in that complaining/commiserating rut! thanks for the reminder!!!
Diane  15th Feb
This is a wonderful observation, Nataly! It reminds me of this corny, yet very true, saying: your attitude is the only thing in life you can really control. So, you can choose to be positive or negative about things. I'm not saying I'm the world's biggest optimist, because I'm not. But that is an attitude that has helped me many times.

Here are my three things about my current projects as a WAHM:
No real deadlines to meet.
No voicemail to check.
Quiet workplace.

This is a great point, Nataly. Guess you could use it in many aspects in your life (3 things you like about your house, your dog, your mother, etc, teehee). I"ll write my list now.
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