Couch Talks: How Do I Survive A Job I Hate?

Couch Talks is the bonus episode of You Need Therapy where Kat answers questions that listeners send to [e-mail].

This week, Kat talks about how to survive when you dread going to your job everyday AND you can’t just go get a new one.

Follow Kat on Instagram: @Kat.Defatta

Follow the podcast Instagram: @YouNeedTherapyPodcast

Have a question, concern, guest idea, something else? Reach Kat at: [e-mail]

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Produced by: @HoustonTilley

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi guys, and welcome to a new episode of Couch
Talks on You Need Therapy Podcast. My name is Kat
I'm the host, And if you're new to Couch Talks
and you don't know it is, it is the bonus
episode of You Need Therapy where I answer questions that
you guys send to Katherine at You Need Therapy podcast
dot com. And quick reminder before we get into all

(00:34):
that we're going to talk about today that this podcast
does not serve as a replacement or as substitute for
any actual mental health services, but we always hope that
it can help you in some way at some point.
So I just got back actually yesterday from a wonderful week,
what was four days at the beach with some of
my best friends, and I had this moment yesterday and

(00:58):
today where I was thinking, how good of a feeling
it is when you're ready for a vacation to be over,
Like you've vacation enough and you actually are desiring to
get back to your life, not that the vacation is
bad by any means, and not that you don't want
to go on vacation, but also you really enjoy the
life you've created and it's not like I was dying
to get back to the office. As much as I

(01:20):
love my job, it's not the thing that I look
forward to the most in my life, which has a
lot to do with the question I'm going to answer today.
So I'm going to answer the question. Then we're going
to carry on with why even said anything that I
just said. And I want to remind everybody that we
keep the questions anonymous here, so you don't have to

(01:40):
worry about me saying your name or where you're from
or anything like that. The person who wrote this question
actually wrote their question and underneath it gave me a
little more context, and I kind of pieced some of
those together without adding any personal information, and that was
really helpful because it helped me understand really where they
were coming from, which it's hard to answer these questions

(02:01):
sometimes because they're so generic, and so I really appreciate
that and know that you can do that. You can
send me a question and then you can give me
more detail to help me understand without me having to
divulge all of your personal information on I mean, it's
this the internet, or it's not radio waves because it's
a podcast to the public. We'll go with that. So
here's the question. I am working in a profession that

(02:23):
I have not always hated, but for the past two
to four years, I've started to dread. I don't see
this as I went into the wrong field, but that
it has simply run its course in my life. I'm
now starting a master's program in an unrelated field to
leave this profession. It will take me about twenty months
to complete the program. Unfortunately, I'm the breadwinner and my

(02:44):
home so I can't just take any other job for
the next two years. We rely on my income. What
advice can you give me for surviving my current profession
until then? Changing jobs will not help me. I know this.
I left a job two years ago hoping a new
environment would help, but it did not. Okay, So I
really like this question, and I think it's a great question,
And it also sounds like this person is in a

(03:05):
pretty healthy place. You're not shaming yourself for choosing the
wrong thing or blaming your workplace environment. You're just noticing
that you're in need of a change and the current
job you had as run its course, and it's okay
to change. And I love that. I feel like so
many people stay in the same profession or avenue in
their whole lives because they feel trapped. And a lot

(03:26):
of times we feel trapped because we believe it's too
late to start, or we've got start over, or we
have put too much effort into what we're in. We
don't want that to go to waste. And while I
do think it's super hard to somewhat start over in
a career, I also don't think it's impossible. So I'm
already really excited for you that you're doing this, and

(03:47):
it sounds like you're on the right track. You have
something to look forward to, a way out of your
current job and the current dread you're feeling, and oftentimes
knowing there's a way out and knowing that there is
an end date can alone alleviate some of that dread
or just like achiness of your current environment. And so
I hope that that has already kind of helped a

(04:09):
little bit, knowing that you're doing something so this is
not just a forever thing. I also think it is
super super helpful to create a life outside of work,
and to make that life outside of work super important.
For a lot of people, work does not equal passion,
and I feel like I talk about that quite often

(04:29):
on here. We live in a society where it feels
like we have to be so passionate and love our
jobs and be obsessed with working and want to talk
about it all the time. It's like a part of
our personality. And a lot of people don't have passion
when it comes to their jobs. And I really think
that's okay. I think it's more than okay. And I
think it's really unfair to say that you can't live

(04:52):
a fulfilling life unless you love your job. I personally
think you can. And this brings me back to me
talking about my VACA. The thing I was looking forward
to the most when thinking about getting back home again,
like I said, wasn't jumping back into work. It was
jumping back into my routine, my habits, the people that

(05:13):
I like to see on a regular basis, things like that,
and the smaller things in my life, not this thing
that I spend doing eight to ten hours a day.
The smaller things in my life are my favorite parts
of my life. Making my favorite meal of the week,
sleeping in my own cozy bed, going to the grocery
store with Patrick. I really enjoy those little things and

(05:35):
I want to encourage you to make sure you are
packing in a lot of small little things that might
seem mundane but also bring you a lot of joy
that you might just be like, not even realizing bring
you a lot of joy. I think we can spend
way too much time making work the thing that our
lives revolve around. I mean, we spend what eight to

(05:57):
ten hours there a day. Sometimes people spend more, and
then we spend more time obsessing about it, talking about it,
planning around it. It's just this it again, like I
said earlier, becomes like our personality, part of our personality,
and I don't think that it needs to be that
way at all. If ever, don't get me wrong, I

(06:18):
think that it can be very very powerful and important
for us to process and talk about work outside of work,
but it doesn't have to be this all consuming thing
that I mean. I feel like we grow up thinking
what our lives are going to be is like what
we're going to do for a living, which makes sense. Again,
we spend a lot of time doing it, and we
can think and dream about what kind of life we're
going to be living too, not just what we're going

(06:39):
to be doing to make money. Now A lot of
people do have passion woven into their job, and I
think that that's okay too. It doesn't mean that's bad,
but I just feel like it's important to keep talking
about the fact that that doesn't always have to be
the case, and you don't have to keep trying to
find a different job until you feel passionate about yours.
You can do that, but it's not the only avenue

(07:00):
to create a fulfilling life, and I just want people
to know that. So my question for you, and what
I would suggest is what if you could create more
life outside of your job that excited you while you
can't control the current status of your job, and we
get to be more excited about those things, and we
can focus on those things more than we focus on

(07:23):
how much we don't like our job. So if we
focus on those little things and we look forward to
those little things, and we start putting our energy in
those little things, we're going to be spending less energy
thinking about how much we hate our job. So really,
to me, when it comes to like, how do you
survive the current job, the current role you're in while
you're working to move into something else, is pretty simple

(07:46):
to me. A lot of it has to do with
creating things and paying attention to things that don't have
to do with work, because again, you cannot control that
right now. The other thing that you can do is
create some benchmarks you can celebrate, make a countdown that
celebrates you achieving things. You're in this program, So can
you start celebrating more of those achievements. Maybe have a

(08:08):
countdown to when your graduation is. Celebrate when you do
well on a test, or you do well on a
project or something like that, so you're again paying more
attention to that the thing that you're looking forward to
than the thing that you're dreading. And then create space
to not talk about work at all. Maybe you create
more space in your life to play games with your
family after work, you start a new hobby, maybe you

(08:31):
start to cross ditch your garden. But what I'm really
getting at is fine ways to fill your life after
work with things that aren't also work. Now. I don't
know the structure of your job. I don't know the
ins and outs of what you have to do and
how taxing it is and how rigid it is, but
I think it's also an okay thought to think about
how you can do your job well, you know, keep

(08:53):
your integrity while you're still employed at this place, while
allowing yourself grace of not doing your job perfectly and
to the highest of any standard at all times. And
I don't mean like be a slacker and like don't
finish things. I mean maybe you bring lunches into work
that excite you and you actually take a break at
lunch to enjoy eating your food or talking with a coworker,

(09:16):
or maybe you schedule on some walks during the day
while you're at work, find some time to break up
the monotony of the dread that you have, switch up
what you can and again focus on that versus the
dread of what you can't switch up. And I would
add to the end of this, I think one of
the biggest things is to be super kind to yourself.
Like I said earlier, I think it's awesome you're already

(09:37):
on the right track, and I think it's really a
huge deal what you're doing putting effort in to shift
something when a lot of people would say, oh, I
can't do that, it's too late, it would be too hard,
and that's a big deal. And I think you should
celebrate that alone and be very kind to yourself and
celebrate yourself in that own achievement, and when you feel overwhelmed,
ask for help and let others help you. Going to

(09:59):
school while working while also trying to find time for
leisure and to take care of yourself is a lot. Like,
you have a lot of things going on, and it's
super fair to acknowledge that even though these are things
that you chose to do. And I guess if you
could not work the job, you would quit, so you
don't have complete control in that. But I just want

(10:20):
you to be giving yourself the attention that you deserve
and the love and the care that you deserve, because
what you're doing again is a really big deal. You're
doing a lot, so it feels like a lot. It's
not because you're doing it wrong. It's because it's a lot.
It just is. So I hope that helps. I know
these aren't light bulb, life changing, jaw dropping suggestions, but

(10:42):
I think that's what's so powerful about them is sometimes
the most simple, little shifts and changes can be the
most powerful. And I truly believe when we can shift
our attention, it takes a while. It's that creating a
new pathway in your brain creating a new river. If
you've heard me on here talk about the river metaph for,
if we create these new pathways that our brains naturally

(11:03):
go to, we're going to be focused on these good
things more than we're focused on the icky things. Now,
the dread of your job, you might not start enjoying
your job. I don't think that's what I'm I'm gonna
try to convince you to think it's going to happen.
You're probably gonna not like your job till it ends,
But the weight of that could feel lighter if we
put more of our attention and we create more of

(11:24):
a natural rhythm to pay attention to the things in
your life that you do enjoy and that do bring
you more energy and fulfillment and enjoy. So again, I
hope that was helpful, And if anybody else has any questions,
you know that you can always send them to Katherine
at UNI Therapy podcast dot com. You can follow us
at uned Therapy Podcast, you can follow me at cat

(11:46):
dot Defada, and you can follow my therapy practice at
three Chords Therapy all on Instagram. We'll be back with
you guys on Monday with an episode that I'm super
excited for you guys to hear, and until then, I
hope that you are having the day you need to.
Half bye guys,