Get It

Sometimes it's hard. When you finally get done with a hard day at work, all you want to do is relax. Unwind. Do nothing.

Understandable.

But if you're like me, you don't wake up in the morning and say to yourself, "Yea I get to go to work for the next nine hours! WHEW!!!!"

I don't think anyone does that.

In my profession, you either patiently put your time in and hope someone in upper management takes notice, or you jump ship six months in and hope another company will hire you to do a different job (which you will undoubtedly become bored with in another six months).

So what do you do about it?

For me, this is the exact question I'm struggling with right now. I have no idea what I want to do, I just know that what I'm currently doing, isn't doing it for me. There are no tangible results, no sustainable relationships and no rewards for a job well done.

One thing I am doing is looking for part-time jobs in different fields. Anything I find that is even remotely interesting. Volunteering. Taking a class at a local community college.

I may not know exactly what I want to do for a career, but I'm damn sure that I know what I don't want to be doing.

The best piece of advice I've ever received came from my father. During a lunch break one day, deep in the middle of the winter grind, I was venting to my father all of the above complaints. Work so damn hard and nothing to show. Want to do this and that, but definitely don't want to be doing this. Blah blah yadda yadda. Finally, after rambling on for ten minutes or so, I told him I wanted to do something new. I told him I would be doing something different within six months. He looked me straight in the eyes and told me this: "Son, if you really want something, you gotta go out there and get it."

It took me a good long time to truly digest this advice, but it boils down to not complaining about it, but acting on it. He understood why I was upset and has undoubtedly been there before. Did he listen to every word of my grievance? Probably not. Did he need to? Absolutely not.

See my father is a mechanic. In his business, talking things out doesn't fix problems. Taking action is what fixes problems, makes customers happy and pays the bills. Sometimes the only way to make it happen is by trial and error. It can be frustrating. It can be tough, but at the end of the day action is what will produce results.

So the next time you're sitting in your cube hating life, don't air your frustrations over happy hour beers, forget about the work day and wake up to an alarm the next morning to do it all over again. Do something about it. Take action. Because if you really want it, you gotta go out there and get it.