272: Feeling Sick of Your Job

Feeling stuck or fed up with your current job situation as the holiday season looms? You're not alone. Thanksgiving may bring gratitude for some, but for many mid-career professionals, it also shines a spotlight on job dissatisfaction and the struggle to find career joy. Join me as I unpack these seasonal pressures and share my journey toward reigniting passion in the workplace. With insights from a trusted mentor and inspiration from Tim Tebow, this episode is filled with practical advice to help you shift your focus from what you can't control to what you can—your attitude, effort, and determination.

As we gear up for the end of the year, explore how to navigate the career "sickness" that leaves you feeling undervalued or stuck in a rut. Whether you're facing a layoff, battling a tough job market, or just feeling worn out, there's light at the end of the tunnel. This episode is a roadmap for creating your mid-career GPS, guiding you toward renewed purpose and motivation. Tune in for strategies that will empower you to love the job you have or confidently seek the one you desire. Let's turn this season of stress into a time of career growth and satisfaction.

Transcript

John Neral: 0:01

Happy Thanksgiving. We're just a couple of days away from the holiday and, amidst all of the things you've got going on, first and foremost I want to wish you and your loved ones a very happy and safe Thanksgiving, and just hearing that might stir up a few emotions. For you See, this time of year can be a lot of pressure for some people because they may be thinking that they have to be grateful that they have a job or they have to be grateful that they're getting a paycheck. But this year has been particularly stressful and in this job market where you might have been looking for a new job and haven't been able to find one, or maybe you got laid off, you might be suffering from sickness. You've heard of sickness. It's that disease where you find yourself sick at his place, sick at his boss, sick at his coworker, sick at his client, sick at his project, sick at his job search, sick at these job interviews. Sickness is not fun and you may not be feeling super grateful this year because of it and the stress of your job and your job search, because it's gotten you down. So in this episode I will help you with your sick of this and I'm going to help you build your mid-career GPS to get you through to the end of the year.

John Neral: 1:26

This is a really relevant episode and a good one, so stick around. We're getting started right now. Hello, my friends, this is the Mid-Career GPS Podcast, and I'm your host, john Neral. I help mid-career professionals like you find a job they love, or love the job they have, using my proven four-step formula. Admittedly, I love this time of year. Getting ready for Thanksgiving and spending time with loved ones means a tremendous amount to me, and what I am most thankful for this year is or one of the things I'm most thankful for this year is our connection. This podcast continues to grow and I'm so grateful that you have followed and subscribed. Perhaps you've reviewed and rated this podcast to help tell people how wonderful this is, but I appreciate you tuning in every single week and an opportunity for us to come together for a few minutes to figure out what's next for you in your career. So thank you.

John Neral: 2:42

But, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, if you're suffering from sickness, if you're not feeling super thankful for your job and where your career's at, I want you to know that's okay. In fact, it's actually normal. There are times we go through our careers where things aren't great and I want to offer you that this feeling is temporary. You will get on the other side of it eventually. But, as a dear friend and mentor of mine told me years ago when I was working for one organization, he said to me think about your time here in thirds. Third of the time it's going to be incredible, a third of the time it's going to be incredible, a third of the time it's going to suck, and a third of the time you're just going to kind of ride in the middle and everything's going to be okay. The same can be true for our careers. There are times when things aren't going particularly well, and it's understandable when you're frustrated or you're feeling undervalued and underutilized maybe you've been searching for a job for a while now and just haven't gotten that job offer yet that you're not feeling super grateful and that's okay.

John Neral: 3:56

I have a free email newsletter. I email everybody in my community twice a week and on Fridays I email a newsletter that I call the Friday Focus, and in the Friday Focus I share a resource to help you build your mid-career GPS. I promote this podcast episode and then I end the newsletter with some kind of quote, as I call it, to help get you to the weekend and through the weekend. You to the weekend and through the weekend. So a few weeks ago I shared this quote from Tim Tebow and I felt it was really relevant for what's going on in the world and in the job market, and Tim's quote is this don't worry about what you can't control. Our focus and energy needs to be on things we can control Attitude, effort, focus. These are things we can control. So if you're suffering from sickness, that's okay.

John Neral: 5:04

What I want to offer you in this episode is what does your attitude, effort and focus look like to help you deal with your sickness? What happened to you this year? Were you laid off? Did you get a bad performance review? Did you not get as big of a raise or bonus as you had hoped? Did your company get bought? Did your company lay you off? Something happened. Are you suffering from burnout? Are you dealing with burnout, either because of your work or something going on in your life, and how is that impacting how you're showing up every day? Burnout's a serious thing.

John Neral: 5:47

Do you believe you are in some kind of professional jeopardy, either because maybe you're paid at the top of the salary guide, or you're paid pretty well within your company and you realize that if they were to let you go, they could hire two of you instead of one, or two people to do your job instead of one. Are you replaceable or are you irreplaceable? If you're in some kind of professional jeopardy, I'll offer here for you to get really clear about what that might be. But whatever you do, don't lie to yourself. Be clear about the situation that's in front of you and where can you get ahead of it?

John Neral: 6:33

When I think of Tim Tebow's quote and I think about the effort, when I think of Tim Tebow's quote and I think about the effort, you can either get in front of something like that and start looking for that new job or finding that new opportunity, or you can wait until it happens. And by waiting until it happens, what I mean is there's going to be a circumstance where it will force your hand to find a new job. You'll get laid off. You're going to be told you're going to be laid off. Do you want to be in that kind of situation where you're being reactionary, or do you want to be proactive and get ahead of it?

John Neral: 7:10

Right, if you don't have a great relationship with your boss. In other words, if you're sick of your boss, okay, figure out if that relationship is salvageable. Is there a way for you to have a conversation with them? That may start to repair the relationship and, if not, accept it for where it is and figure out what the next action step might be. There are plenty of times clients will come to me and we'll do some work around what their Accept it for where it is and figure out what the next action step might be. There are plenty of times clients will come to me and we'll do some work around what their professional brand or reputation are, as well as their relationship with their boss and how they manage it.

John Neral: 7:50

So if you don't have a great relationship with your boss, you're probably in very good company with a lot of people, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it. You can either change it, you can leave it or you can just be like look, the best move for me right now is to hang out, hold on to this relationship until I find something that's a much better fit. So if you want to clear up your sickness, here's what you may want to do or what actions you could take. So, as I just shared, you could have conversation with management. You could begin your job search. You may find yourself job searching on Indeed or LinkedIn, or having conversations with a trusted colleague about how unhappy you are at work or how you feel like you're capable of so much more, but this place where you're working isn't using your talents to their best leverage. And so if you're finding yourself having those conversations, listen to those.

John Neral: 8:58

Listen to yourself having those conversations because, more than likely, you are starting the first part of your building your mid-career GPS, which is to prepare for that job search. Do you know where your resume is? Have you updated your LinkedIn? Maybe you brushed up your about section or your headline a little bit? Are you doing something to begin laying the foundation for what you need to do or want to do to help you find that job you're gonna love, or love the job you have, and find a way to make it work? You may wanna reach out and hire a coach. You may reach out to me and we could certainly have a conversation about what that might look like, but hiring a career coach to help you process what's going on in your career and what you want next to build that pathway, that GPS, to figuring out exactly what it is you want to do and why you want to do that kind of work. But here's the thing Right now, with job interviews, where storytelling is so key, I want you to be able to tell a story that is clean, clear and evidence-based about how awesome and incredible you are, about why your talents get the results they get time and time again. Okay, now, another thing you could do is look for some resources. You may find yourself looking on social media.

John Neral: 10:31

I think YouTube is a great place to find information, but YouTube can also be very overwhelming. Keep in mind, youtube is a search engine. Right, you go there, you type in things. You're going to get a ton of things out there. People say to me all the time they're like John, you should be on YouTube. I don't know. I'm not really. It's not my thing. I like my podcast. I like LinkedIn. That's where I primarily play. You might be listening to this podcast on YouTube because the RSS feed goes directly to that and you just be able to do the dishes while you're listening to the podcast or something like that. But YouTube's a great search engine. You can find things to help you.

John Neral: 11:12

I am cautious at this point at the time of this recording in November of 2024, to say that ChatGPT is the be all and end all, because I don't believe it's there yet. It might be, I don't think it's there just yet, but I would not trust ChatGPT to be your AI career coach. I just wouldn't do it, because there's so many things that happen in a coaching relationship where you need the personal interaction for it. Okay, but get some resources. Build up a personal or professional library of the things that you need or want for your job search. You can go to my website, https://johnneral. com, and I've got a handful of free resources right there at johnnerrellcom forward slash freebies and if you want to invest in some low-ticket offers, there's some wonderful things under the courses tab at https://johnneral. com. That could be a great jumpstart to get you going. One of the things that I've got right up there right now that I've really been enjoying doing is the LinkedIn profile audit. So what you do is you purchase the LinkedIn review, you fill out a Google form and then I'm going to review your LinkedIn profile in real time, from top to bottom, about what's working for you and not working for you in your LinkedIn profile and I'll give you suggestions on how to update it and for a few bucks you can get some expert advice and tip that has been proven time and time again to help increase your traction, your visibility, get recruiters and hiring managers more interested in who you are and what you do.

John Neral: 12:55

But you have to figure out what it is that you need, because if you're sick of this job, it's your responsibility to change it. But you'll change it when you are ready. There is no pressure. The only pressure that you may have is the one you're putting on yourself, or maybe people closest to you might be putting some pressure on you, but you are the only one that can make that decision. You are the only one that is 100% responsible for your career that can take the time, effort and energy to figure out and determine. This job is no longer serving me. This company no longer values me for where I'm at and I need to find a better situation, and here's how I'm going to do that.

John Neral: 13:51

That's on you and whenever you're ready to make that decision, you will so, as you're enjoying your Thanksgiving holiday, what I share with you and I wish for you this Thanksgiving is if you can find something to be grateful for right, whether it be your family, your loved ones, your friends, your colleagues, the paycheck. You get the job that you have, whatever that is, find something to be grateful for, but do not shame or dismiss the frustrations, the angst and the stress you may have about where your career is at. That's fixable and if you're interested, I can help you build that mid-career GPS. All you need to do is reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at john at johnnerrellcom, and let's have a conversation about what that might look like. Okay, all right, if you're traveling, you're on the road, you're in the air, you're on the rails.

John Neral: 14:56

Wherever you are, be nice to people, right as nice as you can be right. Be nice to people. Make it a nice holiday. Most importantly, be safe. And until next time my friends remember this you will build your mid-career GPS one mile or one step at a time, and how you show up matters. I am thankful for you. Thank you for listening, thank you for sharing this episode in this podcast, and I will be back with you next week. Happy Thanksgiving, thank you for listening to the Mid-Career GPS Podcast. Make sure to follow on your favorite listening platform and if you have a moment. I'd love to hear your comments on Apple Podcasts. Visit JohnNarrowcom for more information about how I can help you build your mid-career GPS or how I can help you and your organization with your next workshop or public speaking event. Don't forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on social at John Darrell Coaching. I look forward to being back with you next week. Until then, take care and remember how we show up matters. Thank you.