Bored at work? Be careful what you wish for

What does it mean to be bored?

Sometimes we feel stale at work don't we? What are some of the key reasons why you might be feeling bored?

You are in Transition and Need More Stimulation

For example you may be a parent of young children and so you are at the life stage of balancing your professional work and interests and meeting the daily, immediate needs of your child or children. You sometimes feel like you have become a full-time cleaner as you wipe up after every toddler meal and activity.

Or you have become a carer for your ageing parent or sibling or sick child and your priorities in your daily life have changed.You are needing more stimulation from work to make your life more interesting because you are tied down in the daily routine of cleaning, caring for, putting others needs first.

You Feel Exhausted and are Preoccupied

Perhaps you are building or renovating a house. Or you have shifted your attention and energy away from your current work role because you are preoccupied with other important parts of your life, such as a personal fitness or improvement goal or athletic event, a triathlon for example.

Your Work Role and Your Interests do not match

You got the job. The salary was attractive but the workplace culture is not what you expected. You were hoping to be part of an energetic engaged work community and people are basically working from home or turning up but not enthusiastic about building new workplace relationships.

You are not using your Work Capabilities Fully

Your existing work role is not meeting your need to activate your unique individual abilities. This frustrates you and you seek more meaning and recognition.

Your opportunity for Growth and Development is Limited

There is inadequate internal support for your professional development and growth in your role. The formal L & D function does not appreciate your need to learn at work as a professional worker. And to improve your role.

Lack of Stretch Goals

Your line manager and the organisation just don't get that you need to be challenged and you expect your work organisation to step up and provide meaningful work-based learning opportunities. Even though you are working part-time.

You Feel Stuck and Left Behind

You watch other colleagues advancing past your level.

You Don't Feel as Sharp

You have been a high performer. You are used to setting ambitious career goals for yourself. You have been used to being a high performer and feel like you are just treading water or going backwards.

Be Careful What You Wish For

You wake up one day and decide this is it - you need a new job, a different role, a new challenge. You decide that if you just change your job and have fresh challenges you will feel more fulfilled, better about yourself. Appreciated. Respected. Acknowledged. Engaged. Purposeful.

What To Do About It

Do yourself a favour. Before you stride out purposefully to embrace an exciting better future, one that will progress you towards the career you have worked so hard to achieve, take a deep breath and give yourself some time to sit with these feelings of frustration and restlessness. Think kindly towards yourself, feel smarter about your situation. Smarter Kinder.

Appreciate what you have in your hands

Timing is very important in charting your career direction and next moves. As is strategic thinking. For example, are you currently in a workplace that values your contribution, appreciates your strengths and interests and shares your values?

Are you being supported as a young parent, mother or father? When your young child is sick are you able to take a work day off to care for them without repercussions and being considered to be on the "mummy track" for instance?

Is your professional development CPD facilitated and paid for by your employer? Are there more senior people with whom you connect and can go for confidential and sound advice?

Do you have clients and colleagues you have built healthy strong working relationships with?

Do you know how to navigate the working culture in your organisation?

Take Charge of the Present

What if you decided to make the most of what you have in your hands and to craft your job, sculpt your role to better suit your current life situation?

What if you overcame your feelings of frustration and restlessness and could live in the present without worrying too much about the future?

Can you let yourself of the hook and celebrate how far you have come already. Living fully in the present?

Identify Role Improvement Opportunities for your Current Job Role

Instead of looking around to change your actual job role what if you gave yourself the gift of time to follow through on what is suggested above: to appreciate what your workplace does for you and offers you, to step up and take charge of making the most of your present job. For example:

• Have you identified fruitful networking opportunities within and beyond your workplace?

• Could you ask a more senior person to formally or informally mentor you?

• Is there a skill you want to focus on?

• Could you negotiate the opportunity for a stretch assignment at work?

Core EQ  collaborates with professionals and organisations to identify Role Improvement Initiatives. Mutual benefit opportunities are identified, prioritised and actioned.

Struggling to do this?

That's OK to. There are a range of support interventions you can access if you need more perspective about your working life. Many of you will have excellent Employee Assisted Schemes to access.

Another approach is to reach out to those who gone before and really do get what it feels to be trapped in the daily grind of life.

Circuit Breaker

Perhaps a circuit breaker might work for you. Where you take a break from your usual routines. Some of you might be offered the opportunity to attend an off-site Leadership program away from the office or working from home. Grab these slices of a new perspective, fresh engagement with others, time to reflect and reboot.

Harvard psychologists Susan David and Christina Congleton speak about rigid and repetitive patterns in their book Emotional Agility (2013). The authors explain how exercising emotional agility can encourage us to slow down and think, to pay more attention to subtle details instead of relying on quick conclusions.

We know this as mindfulness. Working with horses offers a very effective means to achieve this state of mindfulness as they encourage us to stay present in the moment with them.

For some of you a day spending a recuperative day meeting with, bonding and working with our horses can help you gain some valuable insights into your own working life and way of doing things. Your values, beliefs and unique strengths.

If that interests you give us a call or fill in the contact form and we will take on board your specific needs and include them in a Role Improvement Master Class.

Improve Your Current Role: Job Crafting

A serious option for you is to learn about the possibility of job crafting your current role. This career development approach has been well known internationally for over 15 years but has not achieved much traction or formal recognition in the legal profession as yet. You will find a series of articles about Job Crafting and the more sophisticated Role Sculpting on this website.

Basically you can stay put in your current role and tweak it, even re-engineer it to suit your interests and strengths. Of course there are some implications regarding how your workplace will view this. But consider it from your employer's viewpoint. They don't want to lose a valuable member of their team because you are bored and their current business environment or strategic direction does not cater for all of your stretch goals. Why don't you meet them halfway and look for mutual benefit opportunities?

The Equine (EQ) Link

Equine Experiential Education programs can significantly assist you to tap into your personal and professional development by guiding you in how to draw on your unique strengths and attributes. Equine assisted Team building, Trust and Leadership exercises can enhance this work.

In our Job Crafting and Role Sculpting Master Classes we have created a purpose built course for legal practitioners wanting to explore the potential of staying put whilst creating a more fulfilling role. You will work with our horses to uncover some truths about your strengths and leadership style.

Dr Deborah Hann

26 March 2024