You’ve got to a point where you are sick and tired of your job, where you struggle to get up in the morning to go to the place that drains most of your day and energy.
You are tired of not having enough time for yourself and for what is important to you.
Trading your life for a salary in the hamster wheel trap is no longer an option for you.
Working for someone else for the rest of your life, building their dream life, while you are giving up on yours scares the hell out of you.
You’ve come to the conclusion you deserve more than just clocking in and out, having only a two-week holiday a year.
In a nutshell, not having the freedom everyone deserves.
You are ready to do whatever it takes to find a way out.
But, being able to escape the hamster wheel trap is not an overnight event, it’s a process instead.
It takes time to develop new skills and create multiple income streams thanks to which you’ll no longer need to show up at work to make a living.
So, quitting your job might be a rash and impulsive decision that could cause you even more trouble in the long run.
How would you pay for your bills? How would you know you’d find a better job?
How would you know the business model you have thought about to replace your job would work?
How long would it take you to develop and hone the high-income skills necessary to create multiple income streams?
There would be a lot of uncertainty.
That’s why quitting your job may not be a clever idea.
What should you do then, if you cannot afford to quit your job yet, but you cannot put up with it anymore?
You should start addressing how you feel about your working life, because if you don’t, you may risk entering a downward spiral.
You may end up burning out, getting depressed, and hating your life, not just your job.
As a result, the people around you, friends and family, will suffer too; so don’t wait for it to happen.
How can you replace the feeling you are experiencing, i.e. feeling sick and tired of your job - trapped in the hamster wheel - with a new empowering one?
CHANGING THE LENS THROUGH WHICH YOU SEE YOUR JOB
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. - Wayne Dyer
Every single situation, event, and person in our life can be seen through different lenses.
The same truth applies to your job.
I remember when I used to feel tired of my traditional job too; when I used to go to work without enthusiasm and came back home even more dissatisfied.
I used to wear the lens of “frustration” and “impatience”, focusing on the “negative” stuff.
Focusing on me still running the hamster wheel, trading my time for a salary, and giving up my freedom made me feel distressed and anxious.
But, then I made a shift!
I started wearing the lens of “patience” and “acceptance”, focusing on the “positive” side of the coin rather than the “negative” one.
I stopped considering my job a trap, a form of slavery.
I started looking at it as the means through which I could pave the way to escape the hamster wheel race once and forever instead.
Thanks to my traditional job I was able to invest part of my salary in online business education.
I acquired digital and marketing skills.
As a result, I’ve built an online business that runs 24/7/365 and that over time will generate multiple income streams.
This, in turn, will free myself from the hamster wheel trap.
Changing perspective has been a game-changer in my personal journey and it may work out also for you.
When I started looking at things in a different way, my inner dialogue changed too.
I moved from thinking:
“How pitiful of me to have to go and trade my time for a salary in a job and not have enough time for anything else”.
To:
“How blessed I am to have a job that gives me the opportunity to invest in myself. How privileged I am to be able to develop high-income skills through which I’ll create a lifestyle with more freedom”.
Same working life, but two completely different lenses and feelings.
Nothing changed on the outside, but everything changed on the inside.
I shifted from a victim mentality to a champion one.
Since you spend most of your working hours at work it makes sense to look at your job through a different lens than the one you are looking through now so that you can experience better feelings.
Remember: your feelings always reflect the story you’re telling yourself.
So they are your benchmark.
They show you whether you’re looking at your job through the lens of “frustration” and “impatience” or the lens of “patience” and “acceptance”.
This is how it works: Lens → Story → Feelings.
Let me stress what I pointed out above through an inspirational story.
A MILLIONAIRE, A MONK, AND A PAIR OF GREEN GLASSES
Once there was a millionaire who was suffering from a prolonged eye strain.
He consulted many eye specialists and took their prescriptions, but nothing worked.
On the contrary, his pain was getting worse and worse.
At last, the rich man met a monk who was well-known for solving similar cases.
The monk understood the source of this pain and said to the millionaire:
“I assure you'll be relieved from this eye strain once and forever, provided you only focus on green colors. Don’t allow your eyes to fall on any other colors”.
The millionaire decided to follow the monk’s advice even if it seemed bizarre.
He gathered a group of painters and purchased barrels of green paint.
Then, he ordered every object his eyes were likely to fall on to be painted green.
After a few days, the monk was passing by the millionaire’s home, and decided to pay him a visit, and check whether the rich man’s eye strain was getting better.
As soon as the monk entered the gate of the villa, the millionaire’s servants poured buckets of green paint on the monk’s red robe.
The monk started laughing and said to the millionaire:
“If you had purchased a pair of green glasses, worth just a few rupees, you could have saved the paintings, furniture, walls, and everything else around you.
What’s more, you could have saved a large share of your fortune and avoided getting depressed”.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It is naive and useless to try to change the world around us because it’s not possible and can lead to frustration and depression.
But, we can change the way we look at things for sure.
We can change the lens through which we see our jobs, our relationships, our health, and everything else.
“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world”. - Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
It’s common to think we need to wait for something external to change in order to feel good, whether it is about our job, relationships, or whatsoever.
But it’s a relief when we realize we have the power to change how we feel in a matter of seconds.
It all comes down to which lens we choose to look at things through; to what we focus our attention on.
I cannot stress it enough, we cannot change what’s going on around us until we start changing what’s going on within us.
When we start changing how we think, feel and behave, as well as when we start responding instead of reacting to life, life will start responding to us.
“If you want things to change, you have to change”. - Jim Rohn
What are the things that are currently giving you an eye-ache?
Will you try to paint everything green as the millionaire did in the story, trying to change the outside world, your job, your colleagues?
Or, will you start wearing a different pair of lenses that will change your perception, and the way you feel and behave?
What are the small changes you can start making today? How can you start looking at your job as an opportunity rather than a burden?
You are the only one responsible for how you feel, and it all depends on what lens you choose to look through.
Looking forward to hearing how you approach your working day once you’ve changed the perception of your job.
More resources for YOU:
I would say: if you don’t like your job – change your job.
If you don’t like your life – change your life.
If you don’t like yourself – change yourself.
If you don’t like your parents… hmm…
Looks like the job is the easiest after all 🙂
Since I believe you have no power or control over the things outside of yourself, I would start by changing my inner world and my perspective.
I would start by changing the way I speak to myself, the way I think, as a result, my action would change, and so would the outcomes.