Truth Bomb Tuesday: Jobs suck. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
What can you do if you hate your day job?
Well, the obvious thing to do is quit, but then that lead you to having an awkward conversation with your bank manager… and your power company, and the school fees administrator… and now your kids are wondering why they can’t have new shoes.
So let me let you in on a little hack.
First up, if you hate your job, good. Some people love their jobs, but it’s not a natural state of affairs.
Most jobs involve you trading your time for money. You give someone the best hours of your life each week, and in return, they give you money.
This is the world we’ve set up for ourselves, but we need to get as far away from that kind of nonsense as possible.
(This is the central teaching of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, right? Don’t work on your income. Work on your assets to create passive income and real freedom.)
Anyway, the point is, if you hate your job, that’s ok. You’re not broken. It’s generally a terrible arrangement, and it’s perfectly natural to dream of something more.
“Ok, thanks Dymphna. I’m no longer anxious about being depressed. Now I’m just depressed.”
Ok, so you’ve owned the fact that you hate your job. Now what?
Well, the advice I give my students is “Make it mean something.”
The problem most people have with their jobs is that they feel like a forever solution. This is the job I’ll be working in for the next 10 years, if not til retirement.
But jobs don’t have to be like that.
A job can be a central part of your financial plan.
If someone came to me with no assets and nothing to their name, the first thing I would tell them is to get a job.
Get an income stream coming in so you can start building towards something.
Often, a job is a wonderful and important stepping stone in the journey towards financial freedom.
And we can feel an awful lot better about our jobs when we understand how they fit into our plan – when they have meaning.
We need to make them mean something. Then we can deal with them.
But the key here is actually having a plan.
You need to know how having a job helps you with your goals. You need to have a long-run game-plan, and understand where your job fits in that game plan.
If you can do that, suddenly you’re not just working for somebody else – you’re working for yourself, working towards your own financial goals.
And that can feel completely different.
So that’s my advice. If you hate your job and you’re not in a position to quit, then you need to make it mean something. You need to make it part of a plan.
Now… about that plan…
DB.