Is Work Your Significant Other?

Let me go over some telling statistics courtesy of The Conference Board.

(The Conference Board are the same really smart folks that give us the Consumer Confidence Index.)

- Only 14% of people love what they do for a living. That means 86% of people don’t love what they do for a living.

- 50% of people would change careers given the chance.

Let’s see… 86% of people don’t love what they do, but yet only 50% would change careers given the chance. That leaves 36% who don’t love what they do but still wouldn’t change jobs given the chance? What’s that all about?

If you looked at the numbers behind the numbers like I did, you’d see that those 36% are “satisfied” with their job. In other words, they’re just OK with their job.

Here’s the way I look at those stats. Your job is much like a relationship. In fact, most people spend more waking hours with their job than they do in their relationship with their significant other.

If you were to ask someone how it was going with the relationship with their significant other, and they said, “It’s OK. I’m satisfied”, what would you think?

Of course, you’d believe something is missing with that relationship. But for some reason, we don’t hold the same standards to our relationship with our career that we do to our significant other, even though it takes up more of our life. Why?

We’ve been brainwashed that it’s OK to not love our job. In fact, it’s expected. Even though the job system is largely to blame for this, the way we identify ourselves to others is even more to blame.

With our clients, we play a very cool game that explains this better than I can write it. So I’ll stop there and present this video to you. It is a very interesting concept that I’ve found provokes a lot of thinking.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_c8N9LG2r8]

Does this concept apply to you, too. Are you seeing red in your life? Take the free Reality Check and see how much you’re using the real you in your life today. It’s fun!!


Author:

Dave Dutton – Founder of Dave Dutton – Founder of stuckinarut.com – “Answering the question for all ages, “What do I want to be when I grow up.”

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Comments

  1. David says:

    The stats are unreal. Let me see if I have this right – 14% love what they do… granted 86% DON'T love what they do…..
    So is it fair to say that in this 86% (and that is a large percentage)this group could be divided as such –
    a. Hate their work? or
    b. Happy to go through life mindless, unworthy, under-valued?
    In either event, sad state to be in. Work a significant other? More like Master/Slave realtionship.

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