Imagine this images in full colour in from of your eyes, big on a movie sceen:

You in your best business outfit, sunshine in the air. The new office, city centre. You face the portal opening the door, walking up the stairs. People come towards you, you get a nod and a warm smile. It is your first day at the new workplace. You see yourself in conversation with your new boss, who is listening and nodding to you with the greatest attention.

You and your colleagues discuss the current issues together and together you decide what needs to be done. You all laugh together because you‘ re all making a joke.

High five!! But it’s only a dream.

Situations can be totally muddled

Should I stay or should I go?

Should I talk to my supervisor, or leave it like it is?

Usually, questions like these tend to circle in our heads, spinning around and around. The inner dissatisfaction is gnawing at us.

Should we change our job? We hesitate and weigh things up. Still, we don’t come to a solution.

In the evenings we talk at the kitchen table til the stroke of midnight, calculating, weighing, dreaming.

And on the next day, we continue as before. After all, the weekend is already planned and there’s still so much to get done. And yeah, we have to really think again, don’t we?

Hey, these are clear signs of putting it off, indecision, whining, or not getting into the groove. It’s called the Job Blues.

But no more of that!

I’ll show you three ways to solve any job problem, not just the question if you change jobs or rather not.

Stop complaining

You know what they say: „leave it, love it or change it“

„I would like to change my job or something about my job, but in these times you have to be happy if you have a job at all“.

Sorry, that’s all a bunch of excuses. And in our hearts, we know that. I, for one

Well, I’ve always found that quotation is a bit trite.

Until one evening I was sitting with a friend and couldn’t stop whining. Then his patience tore, he grabbed a piece of paper and made the following exercise with me.

Whoa! That really hit the spot!

No changes wanted?

Before we come to the three decision options of love it, leave it or change it, the two of us need to talk straight.

Because it’s a possibility that we simply don’t want to do something about things.

We are all free in our decisions. We always can:

• grapple with our situation.
• Complaining about us
• Whining
• blaming others
• always get annoyed about the behaviour of the others, because they simply fail to do what we want them to do
• We can evolve a great sadness
• Oversleep and gamble over the weekend or otherwise drug and distract us in any way.

That’s that not a neat solution? No way.

It’s just supposed to be a wake-up call . Just like my friend gave it to me .

Three options when you consider changing your job

Even in utterly muddled business or home situations, there are basically three possible solutions.

Grab a coffee, tea or a glass of red wine and go through the following exercise. Get the worksheet for „Love it, change it or leave it“ at the bottom of this page.

Love it: Take your job like it is

Have a close look at your professional situation with an open mind.

Test yourself, for our perception, is dominated by our emotions and mood.

Can it be that you’ve already given up and see yourself as a victim of circumstances or of someone else?

Or if things are really all grey, what exactly is it about the situation that makes you feel dissatisfied?

• What would I miss if the situation or matter was no longer there?
• What are the good aspects of the situation?
• How can I learn to accept it?
• How can I make it more tolerable for myself?
• How can I take something away from the situation?
• How can I benefit strategically from this situation?
• How can I find out how to love the situation more?
• How can I turn it into a game?
• How can I learn to cope more easily and reduce stress?

If you say no to everything here and it’s absolutely not the right thing, no problem. Then move on to the second way.

Change it: Change your job situation

You cannot learn to love the situation? No problem.

Imagine what you can change.

You can decide to not live with your unhappiness and frustrations anymore. Think about specific steps you can take.

But come on, let’s not fool ourselves.

Wanting to change in a lousy job situation and carrying it through, step by step can be quite a daunting task. By the way, make sure you quit your job in the right way formally.

At times it takes a fair share of daring.

For instance, when you need to talk to your boss about changing your area of responsibility and have no idea of how the whole conversation will go.

With these questions, you begin to reflect upon your range of action.:

• Can I change anything myself?
• Do I want to change things in the situation? If so, what exactly?
• What should be different?
• In what respect do I want to change myself personally?
• What do I need to learn?
• Do I honestly want to learn something new?
• How do I proceed exactly?
• What is the final result supposed to look like?
• Who is there to help me? Do I want to ask for help?
• By which time will I realize the change?

Leave it: Exit your job situation

Only after we have tried and tested it all, and it wasn’t working, comes solution three. You want to change the job.

Ok then, make the cut.

There’s this rather silly saying, supposedly by American Indians:

„When you find you’re riding a dead horse, get off! And don’t try to revive it, or even try to drag it along on your back!“

This line has so much truth in it because we find it so hard sometimes to accept the fact that our job is a dead one. That the relationships are dead and that there is no way to revive them. The only way is to change jobs.

Well, that can be scary as shit. Can require tremendous courage. But it‘ s no good staying in a situation that keeps dragging you down.

Certainly not if there are any options.

Alongside your inner uncertainty, you also feel that you are free to apply for a new job.

Then, you feel the curiosity to try out if you have a chance in another sector, another job and with a new employer. Investigate your individual job market, and figure out what requirements German employers have in your domain or the domain you want to transition to. Use the JobAd-Investigator as help to deeply understand what candidate the companies are looking for – and then go ahead and apply. If it doesn’t work out within the first three weeks, who cares? It’ll take time anyway.

Afterwards, when you’ve signed a new contract, speak with your supervisor. For so many of us, this is a huge step toward liberation. It feels like a weight has been lifted from our shoulders.

These are the questions you can ask yourself:

• Do I want to leave the situation or the cause?
• Do I want to pull myself out of it?
• How can I make sure that I do not face the unwanted situation anymore?
• Can this be managed without too great risks or losses?
• Which are the necessary steps?
• By when do I want to put this into practice?

Your next step

Are you uneasy in your job or concerned?

Then take a moment to write down all the things in your job that you don’t like at all.
Mark each point once with a heart, an arrow or a hammer.

So, there you go:

• make a heart if you love or accept this thing.
• make an arrow if you prefer to leave this scene.
• and a hammer if you would like to finally actively tackle this thing.

Then write down a date until when you will do that:

• until when do you plan to leave the job?
• until when do you want to accept your actual job like it is?
• when do you want to do something about it?

The post Job change🌵: Love it, change it or leave it appeared first on My Job Germany.