I Blame Work

The all too obvious scapegoat

What did we blame before we had work in our lives? It's hard to imagine not using work as an excuse for stress, unhappiness or lack of energy but what if that easy fallback wasn't there? Take away that option and I'm sure you'll still be left with plenty of other causes that you previously blamed on work.

Family, friends, bills, spouses, moving home, other commitments, the list is endless. So why is it that we jump to work and can't seem to look past it as the cause of our problems?

We all have bad days now and again

Everyone has bad days at work, just as they have bad times in their lives outside of work. However it's the times at work that seem to become a focus due to the lack of control we experience when compared with our personal lives. In our free time we often have a lot more choice regarding our actions, if you are unhappy outside of work you can often communicate this and take actions to correct it. If however you are unhappy at work it may make the situation worse to voice those feelings or behave as you would if you weren't at work. Which is why we focus on work as an area that causes us to be unhappy.

One of the first steps to enjoying work is accepting that sometimes there will be situations at work that you prefer not to experience. These are what most of us refer to as bad days. The important thing to remember is that these should be infrequent occurrences, and if you are having a bad day just accept it and move on with the rest of your day.

There is a saying "tomorrow is the next day of the rest of your life" - but why wait till tomorrow? If you are having a bad day there's always time to change it and turn it around. Do what you can to turn the day around, often it's your state of mind that is controlling your day when it should be controlled by reason and logic.

If you have a couple of bad experiences during the day, don't focus on those bad experiences and transfer them to others around you. It's far better to expect that things will change and go your way, this will stop you dwelling on the negative and this will project a positive feeling to those around you. If you're projecting positive signals, others are more likely to reciprocate and this could just turn that bad day into a good day.