Here’s how to stay motivated at work even when you’re ready to quit.
You’re itching for a change, but deep down, you know that landing a better job won’t happen overnight. So now you’re feeling a bit stuck because your current job feels more like a chore than a career and the to-do lists are longer than the patience you have left. Every day, you find yourself fighting the urge to say, “I’ve given up,” but you know you have to hang on until another job comes along.
If you just sighed because that describes how you feel every week, then it’s time to find a way to keep the motivation alive so you can still thrive at work while you look for your next career move. Here are five suggestions to help you with this:
Find career interests that align with your career goals
Doing work you don’t enjoy every day can feel like a painful, slow death. If this is the main reason you are looking for a new job, then you may want to explore alternative activities you can do at work, proactively looking for new opportunities elsewhere.
For example, one of my clients, Sarah, loved marketing and event planning, but her current role didn’t allow her to plan events as much as she wanted. Not only did this make her unhappy, but it also made her worry that she was losing her event planning skills the longer she stayed in the position. To address this, she decided to pursue event planning opportunities within her company. She found projects where she could volunteer while still maintaining her day-to-day responsibilities. This made her to-do list more fulfilling and allowed her to add new accomplishments to her resume that align with her career goals.
Taking on additional projects alongside your current workload may not be feasible for everyone, but if you have the bandwidth to do it, then it can make your days more fulfilling and help the time go by a little faster.
Set healthy boundaries at work
If you find yourself bouncing between overwhelmed, unhappy, and overworked, then it might be time to set some healthy boundaries with yourself and your team. Even as you look for new opportunities elsewhere, practicing this skill now can help prevent similar problems in your future role. If you’re not sure where to start with setting healthy boundaries, take a look at your schedule, initiatives, and to-do lists and assess which items are draining your time and energy.
For example, do they trade you off with non-stop meetings? Are there tasks that could be delegated to another team member? Do you find it hard to say no, even when you know you don’t have the bandwidth? Taking some time for an honest self-examination can help you identify the baby steps you need to take to set healthy boundaries at work while you look for your next opportunity.
Schedule distraction-free time for your job search
When you’re ready for a new job, it’s tempting to squeeze your job search into every spare moment of the day. While drinking your morning coffee, you can scroll through your emails to see if LinkedIn has sent any new job postings. Once you’ve completed all the tasks for the day, you might consider rewarding yourself by applying to dozens of jobs.
But cramming your job search into the crevices of your day is not only unnecessary but also time-consuming and inefficient. Instead, look at your weekly schedule, including your to-do lists and personal commitments, and create a job search schedule that aligns with your weekly agenda. Doing so will allow you to spend more quality time on your job search and applications. Plus, it will empower you to do more and give you the mental space to send better applications, increasing your chances of getting more responses and interviews.
Connect with others more intentionally
When you’re ready to quit, the last thing you want to do is spend more time tying it to the company you’re ready to leave. But while it may be tempting to say no to every happy hour, consider this: once you leave this company, you’ll likely never be in the same room with any of your coworkers again.
That might be a good reason to break out into a happy dance, but before you do, you should also consider whether there are select people you’d like to meet or learn from while you still have the chance. If the answer is definitely no, proceed with a clear conscience. However, if the answer is yes, you could make your work weeks more fulfilling by intentionally making time to meet and connect with the few people you admire. They could be senior leaders you rarely get a chance to see, or colleagues who work on different teams or projects that spark your interests and curiosity.
Cultivate a hobby outside of work
If you’re not intentional, hating your job can quickly turn into another full-time job. You may find yourself spending most of your time decompressing on the couch, complaining about how much you hate your job, or even actively avoiding your friends and family so you don’t have to talk about work and how much you hate it.
But instead of giving your work more energy than it needs, consider pouring your energy into things that light you up. This could mean starting a new hobby you’ve been putting off or taking up an old hobby you’ve stopped doing. Between working, looking for work, and developing a personal life, taking up a hobby might be something else you don’t have time for right now. But cultivating a hobby outside of work doesn’t have to be time-consuming either. You can start by setting aside time once a week, preferably during the work week, so you have something to look forward to after work.
There is a lot of advice out there on how to land a new job, but often not enough on how to stay motivated and successful in the one you want to quit. Fortunately, even implementing one or two of these suggestions can make a grueling work week more bearable as you look for your next career move.
Adunola Adeshola coaches high achievers on how to take their careers to the next level and secure the positions they’ve been chasing. Get her free guide.
