- The only thing worse than outgrowing a job is losing a job.
- In fact, outgrowing a job is much like losing a job.
- The hints that you’ve outgrown your job, such as you are no longer motivated to work, you miss deadlines, you’re bored and ultimately don’t care, can affect your employment status.
- This is why it is always good to know how you stand with your work, and whether or not you have, in a sense, gone far and above what the job requires.
Other than being fired from a job, there is no worse feeling than outgrowing a job. Sure, there are some workers who believe that once they’ve outgrown their employment, it’s smooth sailing from there onward, and all that person has to do is show up to “phone in” their work.
Meanwhile, there are other workers who put themselves in a panic once they’ve realized they’ve gotten everything out of their employment until there’s literally nothing left.
There are no new tasks; there is nothing new to learn. Workers like these are, for all intents and purposes, stuck in a rut. And for many of us (as well as them), this can signal a very precarious situation as far as their long-term employment is concerned.
But the point is to not become complacent and mail in your day-to-day performance. If this is done, there’s a strong chance a supervisor, manager or boss will notice the inadequacy between yourself and your tasks, which may result in your job being altered into something less appealing, or being terminated altogether, which no employee and more than likely employer wants to do.
So what should you do if you’ve outgrown your job? Well, sitting at your desk bored and waiting for quitting time is no way to address your situation, so instead, keep reading to find some real signs that can determine if your talents have left your job in the dust and solutions that can help you get back into the swing of enjoying what you do for a living.
Too Big for Their Work-Related Britches
Everyone wants to do well in their jobs – that’s a given.
Most workers want to learn every aspect of their work, and in doing so, make it so that their job is an extension of their abilities as a person; not just a worker.
They want their job to become effortless and automatic – not routine or redundant, as would be the circumstance with a job that a worker has outgrown.
In other words, outgrowing one’s job is…well…a much different scenario than doing well at one’s job.
The fact is workers who outgrow their job has become an issue that has long since made work as laborious and mundane as the word “work” sounds.
What’s even worse is a worker who outgrows their job can be an obstacle to themselves and other workers, not to mention managers and businesses.
For the worker who has outgrown their job, many negatives come into play.
- They become bored, ineffectual, and prone to mistakes simply because their work is no longer a challenge.
- The worker who has outgrown their job devolves into negativity and bitterness which could soon foster an unpleasant atmosphere to others in the workplace, including managers.
- Productivity could suffer.
- The worker’s poor attitude could spread throughout the entire workforce.
By all means, this has to be avoided – both by the workers themselves and the manager. A complete meltdown within the internal workings of a business could suffer, signaling the certain demise of that business as a whole.
To that end, Forbes published an article titled Ten Unmistakable Signs You've Outgrown Your Job which defines the most common traits a worker can find in themselves that signals their job scenario either needs to become more interesting, or a new job may be on the horizon. Those traits are:
- Projects and activities that used to excite you now bore you. You've done the same things so many times that there's no longer any challenge to them.
- When you look ahead at your goals for the year you can't see anything intellectually stimulating or creatively satisfying on your agenda. In other words, there's nothing in your job to look forward to.
- People ask you for advice on how to get things done at work, but you have no one yourself to ask for advice when you need it. You'd love to know the answer to questions like "How can I enlarge my role to have more influence on the company's results?" or "What are the major strategic priorities for the firm this year and how can I help us reach them?" but no one wants to have those conversations.
- You find yourself looking at the clock constantly, hoping the work day is almost over.
- You know you can contribute more to your employer or some other organization than what your current job allows you to do.
- You propose ideas and projects and they always get shot down.
- You don't see anyone around you at work who inspires or whom you can look up to and learn from.
- You dream or daydream about cool, out-of-the-box things you could be doing but your job doesn't allow you to do any of them -- and at this point you're afraid to even mention them.
- You've learned not to say anything that would startle or alarm your coworkers but the effort to stay in your little box is killing you.
- When you listen, you can hear your trusty gut screaming "This is not the place for you anymore!"
What to do when the job is no longer special
So given the before mentioned 10 examples, it is entirely possible that your job may still not be a dead end. In fact, it is more likely that your job is still a good job, and to that end, no matter how congested the job market is, a good job in which one knows the ropes of all they’re supposed to do is a mighty nice five-day-a-week possession.
Even so, that doesn’t preclude you from falling to boredom, staring at the clock, feeling like you shouldn’t share ideas because they’ll invariably be refused. What you should instead do with your less-than-ideal work situation is find out what portions of your job might still have some appeal, and in that try to exploit that appeal – not just to save your job, but to save your sense of purpose as well.
There are three core ways a person can get motivated with their jobs according to a recent Muse article titled Bored With Your Job? 3 Ways to Get Inspired Again.
1. Gain Perspective
One change you can immediately make is your perspective on your position. Instead of counting down the minutes until 5 or keeping a tally of all the times you’ve switched back and forth between your email and calendar, consider instead what unearthed opportunities might exist for you beyond your cubical. A less perky way of saying that would be to keep your eyes open for problems that need solving. (And don’t stop there—look for ways to solve them.) Move one step past boredom, and look for ways to take action. No matter what you find yourself doing, you’re bound to feel more engaged. (Bonus: Your efforts won’t go unnoticed.)
2. Find Your Impact
One common source of dissatisfaction about work is not knowing if you’re making a difference—whether that’s a difference in society or even a difference in your organization. But the fact is, no matter what you do, you very likely are. In fact, that’s probably a little bit of why you took the job in the first place. So, sometimes you just have to be a bit more intentional about thinking about it.
Next time you’re faced with a mindless task, take some time to step back and reflect on what your impact is or what greater cause you’re contributing to. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a noble cause like alleviating world hunger. Are you delivering great customer service or elevating the company brand? Maybe you’re just brightening one person’s day—whatever it is, take a moment to just recognize the impact you might be having.
3. Take on Risk
Put yourself on the line more. If you find yourself wondering how much longer you’ll be sticking around in this job because your days are growing so dull, then it’s definitely time to be taking on more risk—both to keep things interesting and to develop yourself further. Try suggesting a new project to your supervisor for you to tackle or innovate on your current responsibilities by reevaluating how they’re carried out. Is there a way to streamline a process? Might there be a completely new way to approach a usually tedious task? If you can find ways to carve out more time in your day, just think: You can take on something much more exciting.
Conclusion
No matter how boring a job may be or how overqualified you might be, as long as you are getting paid to show up to do your Monday through Friday tasks, the job you now have is in no way dead, even though it may feel as if it is dead.
To counteract that feeling, ask yourself what you can improve about your job, how it flows from one day to the next, and in that, make overall productivity of where you work higher and more efficient. Sure, depending upon where you work, any gross improvement might be a far-fetched pipe dream. But then even incremental improvements have a way of improving a worn-out been there, done that work environment.
Just remember, good jobs are hard to come by. And jobs in which you’ve outgrown your responsibilities may initially be tough to deal with, yet with a few adjustments such as taking on one or two new tasks in addition to what you already have, the recognition that you’ve improved your work environment and tasks beyond what you are normally given might be the right amount of impetus to re-energize your job.
For more information, look into these articles:
- How To Clean Up Your Social Media For Your Job Search
- 15 Companies With Awesome Pay And Benefits
- 8 Strong Questions You Should Ask During A Job Interview
- Putting First Things First: Self-Assessment
- Long Term Objective – A Factor In All Your Job Search
