If you don’t drink a drop of pleasure from your work, you risk ruining your personal life as well. Change it
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“How was your day,” your husband/wife asks. “I worked. Stop asking me every day,” you blurt out, not believing your ears. He/she shows interest in you and you fight?!
This is a clear sign of occupational anhedonia. You need to take action quickly or risk your career, family and health.
The psychologists’ warning is not exaggerated at all. It is backed up by a lot of research on what happens when a person falls into this state – anhedonia. He ceases to experience satisfaction and pleasure. From the profession, the inability to enjoy is transferred to private life with disastrous consequences.
It makes perfect sense that if you don’t feel good about what you’re doing five days a week for at least 8 hours, you’ll feel miserable the rest of the time. You are in an advanced stage of professional anhedoniayou hate your job.
When you’re a little fed up with your work, you find compensations. In leisure activities that at least then make you happy – in a hobby, say. Load yourself with something that gives you meaning – study a language, cook, read books on personal development. You comfort yourself with “My job is stupid, but my family and friends are great”, you try to contact them as much as possible. Thus, to a certain extent, you manage to get out of the dissatisfaction.
When you are very fed up with your job, you are approaching professional burnout. It is also a dangerous state, but it is more of an exhaustion that can be cured by reducing the tension – unloading from commitments, rests, reconsidering the goals (do you not want to achieve them too quickly, are you not exceeding your capabilities), and of the attitude towards duties (do you not overdo it).
Occupational anhedonia is an even more severe condition, it is a step beyond burnout – you enter a mental disorder.
The evening was wonderful with your partner and loved ones, but as you fall asleep, you are struck by the thought that tomorrow you will have another 8 disgusting hours. You are overcome with sadness and anxiety, which disturbs your sleep all night.
Depression gets even worse when you wake up and just can’t get out of bed. The fact that you leave every morning not wanting to go to work means that you are in anhedonia and you should immediately think about a change, experts point out.
Otherwise, the situation will get complicated. People who are bored with their work and do not make a change for a long time feel trapped. They suffer more and more, they want to free themselves, but they are afraid to take a step outside the familiar, to risk looking for a place in another company or to try a new profession.
That’s how you get to the third stage, which to some extent depends on the character.
Because they are unhappy in their jobs and because they realize that they don’t have the courage to change, some are overcome with indifference in relationships with those closest to you.
Others get super irritable – take out their negative emotions on them. They end up causing pain to themselves and everyone around them.
Before these relapses occur, think about how long you haven’t felt a drop of joy from your work. If it’s recent, maybe you’re tired and it’ll go away after you rest over the summer vacation.
If it’s been a long time, figure it out when it started. Perhaps the atmosphere in the team heated up because of difficult tasks, because of a nervous boss, because of a new colleague with whom you do not get along. Perhaps the company has problems that create uncertainty, and management does not give signals that it knows how to solve them.
It’s natural that all of this affects you, but it’s probably just an occasion. The real reason you dramatize it is because you don’t feel pleasure. Every challenge and your usual surroundings of colleagues they don’t inspire you, they drain your energy.
Perhaps there is also disappointment – you do not expect anything good to happen to you here, because you are you gave your all and you didn’t get opportunities for development.
It’s not just about career advancement or higher income. Professional development is also important. If you are stuck in a routine, if you are bored of performing the same duties in the same way, how to feel pleasure. What used to bring you joy in this profession and in this work now tires and irritates you. Your only way out is to look for a new source of positive energy, satisfaction and pleasure in order not to self-destruct.
Another possible cause of occupational anhedonia may be that you don’t see the point of your work. You go to work to earn money. But every person would like their efforts to benefit someone else. And if your activity conflicts with your personal beliefs and moral values, of course you are even more unhappy.
Don’t kid yourself that it will go away. On the contrary, anhedonia it will only get worse if you do nothing. Better take the leave to decide what to do.
After you’ve rested for a few days, give yourself a few hours of solitude to reflect. Systematize in your head what you feel, why you feel it, and how you can get out of it.
Then discuss it with your partner or a close friend. When you talk out loud about your condition, everything will become clearer to you. The partner or friend will help you with the perspective of a person who knows you, but also with the objectivity of the external assessment.
It will be great to have his support, even if it is only moral, because changing jobs is not that easy.
I have to be quick but smart. It is foolish to leave your current job and go to a place where you will soon start to feel the same way. It is better to make a plan of action and search until you find what will bring you joy.
But the decision itself and the hope of change will alleviate professional anhedonia to some extent.
—– Even show selfishness to get away
The term anhedonia comes from the Greek and literally means “without pleasure”. The dangerous thing about the condition is that a person loses motivation and finds it extremely difficult to commit to making changes. On the other hand, the mental disorder deepens and the joy of more and more things disappears. Despair sets in: “There’s no point in trying, nothing helps,” apathy sets in.
According to experts, in occupational anhedonia it is very important that a person to reduce levels of psychosocial stress.
It means first to stop considering the opinions of othersas long as it contributes to his condition. Eliminate the evaluations of the boss and colleagues from your mind, do things the way that brings you satisfaction and pleasure while looking for a way to change your job.
If necessary, he can be selfish in order to get out of the situation. Forget about loyalty to the company. Compromise on money – also move for less income, even though it will hurt your family. It will be much more damaged if you do not regain the pleasure of work and life. People who love you will understand when you explain and support you to do just that.
In “The Right Man” you can read more:
Without courage there is no glory or how to achieve success with the 10 percent rule
When the boss has a prejudice against you – concrete steps to invalidate it
The sacred cows of service and how to honor them to advance your career
In a job interview, don’t brag about your accomplishments. Defeat fears
5 Signs of Excessive Team Drama That Eats Productivity, Nerves, and Success
A graceful exit is always more forward-thinking than a loud slamming of the door
What is a functional psychopath and how to deal with one as a colleague
12 signs that you are destined for success
Too smart for high office? It happens often
How to behave and be successful with a boss manager and how with a boss leader
More luxurious than the boss and colleagues – a bad choice