No longer enjoying work: now what?

Work is necessary to pay bills, and if you do it well you like your work. Maybe you really liked your job when you started it, but what if you no longer enjoy your work now? What do you do then?

Having fun in your work is important for working with energy and preventing symptoms such as feeling overwhelmed, stress, emotional fatigue and burnout.

What could spoil your fun?

So finding joy in your work is important to being able to do that work for a long time and to not suffer from stress and other emotional problems, or at least as little as possible.

So what could be spoiling your enjoyment of your work?

1. Time pressure
2. Lack of control
3. Conflict over your roles at work
4. Bad relationships at work
5. Lack of support when you make mistakes at work
6. Workplace violence (for example, if you work in healthcare)
7. Moral Objections

What helps you find joy in your work?

There are things you can do yourself to find more joy in your work and there are things your supervisor should actually do to make sure you are happy at work.

For example, it is helpful when executives express their appreciation to you. In addition, you can be involved in shaping processes. For example, if you can give your feedback on how things are done at work and then actually do something with it, that helps you enjoy your work.

In addition, the company where you work can help you with your business development by offering training and growth programs, for example. If you are also sent to conferences or certain events in your field to learn something from, that often helps you enjoy your work more as well.

Is there enough staff for the work that needs to be done? If you have too few colleagues and therefore basically always have to work in a "hurry," that doesn't really help either.

Can you take a break at work without that break being interrupted by an "emergency"? If so, that's also good for your enjoyment of work.

Get your rest when you can. Sometimes you need a break from work. Can you grab a cup of tea? Then grab your cup of tea and just enjoy that cup of tea for a while. You can drink the tea mindfully, so to speak, so that you are in the here and now for a moment and not thinking about all the work you still have to do or the mistakes you made at work.

Talk to your colleagues. Thank your colleagues when they do something for you, give compliments when they have done something[1]. By starting with this, you can also get these kinds of pleasant thanks and compliments back. Leading by example yourself can cause colleagues to adopt your behavior.

In addition, you can actually start an actual conversation with a colleague. After all, we are social creatures and such a chat can strengthen your sense of connection with your colleagues, which in turn is good for your well-being. In addition, enjoying success at work together is often more enjoyable than just giving yourself a high five.

If you find it difficult to say “no” to certain projects, this can also cause you to lose your enjoyment of your work. That’s why it’s important to set boundaries at work as well.

Determining the meaning and purpose of your work can also help you find joy in your work again[2]. For example, what is the added value of your work for the people you help? Or even for society? By considering what you find important and how your work contributes to this, you may find that you already get more satisfaction from your work.

Also find out what may be preventing you from enjoying your work. For example, do you struggle to have free time? Or do you feel like you always have to be available? If so, those are problems you can address.

Hypnotherapy for more fun at work

As you can see, there are a number of things you can do to get back to enjoying your work more. These can include practical things, but also more mental things that will help you improve your intrinsic motivation, the form of motivation where you do something because you enjoy doing it.

For example, by defining the meaning of your work, you can improve your intrinsic motivation. Hypnotherapy can help you improve your intrinsic motivation[3].

For example, a therapist can help identify ways in which your work affects your life and the lives of people you touch with your work in a positive way.

The story you tell yourself about your work and career can also greatly affect how much fun you still get out of your job. With hypnotherapy, you can get this story straight for yourself and become more aware of your own view of your career and work[4]. This can give you new insights for steps you can take at work to regain pleasure in your work.

Setting boundaries and choosing for yourself

In addition to motivation, you also have a more practical side to finding joy in work by namely standing up for yourself. Saying "no" when you can't have a particular task and choosing for yourself when you really can't fill in for a colleague or just desperately need your weekend and can't work overtime.

For example, a hypnotherapist will help you figure out why it can sometimes be so difficult for you to say "no" at work.

This is often due to fears about your livelihood, and these are triggered by beliefs you have about how the world works and how you are supposed to function in it. For example, many people fear that their boss will fire them if they say "no" once[5]. As if your supervisor doesn't see that you are valuable even if you say "no" once in a while and it takes much more effort to get a new person in than to make the task less of a priority or give it to another colleague.

Research also shows that hypnosis works well to reduce anxiety at work[6].

Identifying those fears is often possible during an initial consultation, and a therapist can then help you address them. In hypnosis, the regression technique is often used. With this technique, you go back to the first moment when, for example, you felt that you couldn’t make your own choices but should instead go along with what someone else told you to do.

These are often moments from your childhood, as that is the period in your life when you determine what seemingly are the "rules of life" here on earth. You then get help from a hypnotherapist to reinterpret that moment, but now with your adult knowledge.

You can even change the moment slightly in your mind if needed, such as by having a conversation with your younger self, your inner child, so that they can also see the new situation.

That new perspective on memory can go a long way toward making you feel freer to say "no" at work when needed, and that freedom alone can make you enjoy your work more.

In addition, strengthening your ego can also help you set boundaries in a variety of situations[7], such as at work.

For example, your ego can be strengthened by repeating suggestions such as:

"I can do anything."

"I am worth standing up for."

"I am the most important person to take care of."

"I am strong and worthy."

These are just examples. Depending on your problems with setting boundaries at work or, for example, providing feedback for improvement, you may get other suggestions from a hypnotherapist to repeat.

Starting the conversation with your peers

Starting the conversation with your colleagues to create a fun atmosphere at work is also something you can practice in your mind with a guided visualization, so to speak. This will give you an idea of how you can respond to your colleagues and improve the mood.

Triggering this imagination can help change your actual behavior in the workplace so that you actually connect with your colleagues.

All in all, losing pleasure at work is a signal that something needs to be changed before you experience health issues. It is helpful to consider whether you have enough freedom at work and whether you have arranged your work time and personal life in a way that works for you.

Hypnosis can help you improve your internal motivation for your work and overcome fears that currently prevent you from monitoring your limits.

Want to know exactly how hypnosis works? Then come join a free online masterclass.

Or register for one of our seminars and trainings .

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