How to Achieve Job Satisfaction?

Found this on online job's site. Worth reading.
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How to Achieve Job Satisfaction?

By Anastasia Yvette Lee


Human beings strive to seek satisfaction in every aspect of their life. From satisfying their basic primal needs, hunger, thirst, rest and social interaction, the complex society today has its share of goals and fulfilment that should be achieved by individuals. This set of goals and fulfilment includes securing a good job, preferably with a good pay and hopefully, with job satisfaction.

Why the wishful thinking in the latter part? Is it so hard to achieve job satisfaction?

What is satisfaction anyway? Human beings are known for their nature of being hard to please. It is human nature to be inquisitive and curious.

The insatiable thirst for knowledge and incessant desire and craving for something new are factors which determine the never ending quest of humans striving for "satisfaction" in every aspect of their life.

Just look at the technology today and that of 20 years ago. From the simple telephone, we have now mobile phones in all shapes and sizes, with specifications and features which are unimaginable two decades ago - it is part of the human quest for satisfaction in life.

So, if you are looking for a simple step-by-step guide on how to find job satisfaction, you are in for a disappointment. This article only presents to you the nature of satisfaction and how some people actually find job satisfaction on their own.

However, there is a general rule of thumb - change your mindset and be realistic in your expectations. Try out these tips:

Embrace Changes

Acknowledge Differences

Forgive Yourself

Forgive Others

Be Positive, Discard Negative Thoughts

EMBRACE CHANGES

Accept the fact that things may change - people change and you may also change over time. Embrace changes and you will find that, you just might be a step closer to job satisfaction.

Bear in mind that what brings you satisfaction today may not be so in the future.

There is no one set rule of how to be satisfied with your job. There is also no fixed guideline on how to overcome challenges at work into a motivation for you to achieve job satisfaction.



ACKNOWLEDGE DIFFERENCES

For a gardener with eight mouths to feed at home, the meaning of job satisfaction may be to bring home his daily pay of RM15 and to ensure that his wife has the means to put the needed food on the table. For a top executive with a five-figure salary, job satisfaction is no longer a matter of daily survival - unlike the aforementioned gardener - it may be a matter of fulfilling his own personal goals and meeting other set objectives and aims of his organisation. With such a broad definition and interpretation of satisfaction, we are back to square one - How to achieve job satisfaction?

Can happiness bring you satisfaction? Yes, to a certain extent. Those who are wiser will say that satisfaction equates happiness and contentment. How to be happy then? It is when you are contented and satisfied. And how do we do that - you may ask?

"It is all in the mind" - a cliché which applies to almost everything in life - including in your quest for job satisfaction.



FORGIVE YOURSELF

Be kind to yourself. Most people who find it hard to achieve job satisfaction are normally too harsh on themselves. Do not blame yourself if things do not turn out as you expect them to be. Admit your weaknesses but do not disparage yourself in any way.

Always remember that regardless of what others say about you, they cannot make you feel bad about yourself until you allow yourself to do so.

In other words, forgive yourself for making mistakes because after all, "to err is human". Build up your self-esteem and self-confidence to perform better the next time around.

Once you accept your own shortcomings and come to terms with your limitation, you are on the right path to achieving job satisfaction.



FORGIVE OTHERS

Your quest for job satisfaction is one that should be taken alone but along the way, you need to work with others and answer to your bosses. Hence the need for you to accept the fact that you cannot please everybody.

Learn to forgive others who actually seemed to have tried to sabotage your plans and career advancement. Holding grudges can be a temporary measure to express anger but you should learn how to let go of the feelings of ill-will against those who have wronged you at work and free yourself of the unnecessary stress.

By being angry with others or by being frustrated with your surrounding, you are only subjecting yourself to more hurt and pain while others have almost no inkling of how troubled you are and they might just perform better than yourself while you were still wallowing in self-pity or anger.

This is where you learn to let go of your bruised ego and actually try to accept things as they are and forgive others. Accept the work environment and only then will you strive to improve on things.



BE POSITIVE, DISCARD NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

It can never be overemphasised that being positive and feeling good about yourself are very important - especially in your quest for job satisfaction.

One can choose to look at the bright side of things or choose to harbour negative thoughts whenever a situation crops up at work which may disrupt the daily routine or normal flow at the workplace.

A saying which holds true till today is "Everything happens for a reason - you may not know it know but when the time comes, you will know" which is similar to "It is all fated" - which means that there is little that you can do in these situations.

So you are helpless and can't do anything to change the situation. So what? Knowing that there are things which are beyond your control is a form of strength. Learn to be positive and do not allow negative thoughts to consume your mind.

By acknowledging your limitations, you are not letting yourself down but are accepting yourself for who you are and from there, you can strive to further improve yourself and push yourself to the limit in your future endeavours.

Problems and challenges are two similar yet different situations - be negative and it will be a problem - be positive and treat it as a challenge.

The problem is - do you want to change your mindset? The challenge is - can you embrace your limitations and be happy with them?