5 Reasons Why You’re Unhappy at Work

This post was most recently updated on June 25th, 2022

[A collaboration post – all thoughts are my own.]

Have you ever felt that you’re unhappy at work?

Whether you’re working in the office or working from home as a freelancer. There seem to be plenty of reasons to be unhappy in your job role and it is easy to put blame on other people or things out of your control. But, what is the real reason you aren’t happy?

If you don’t like your job, quit it and find another. But, somehow, no matter what dream job you get, you end up back here. Unhappy. In reality, not all of us can just quit our jobs and get our dream job, we have lives and responsibilities.

Early in my career, although translating was my passion, there were times when I felt unhappy. I have dealt with many clients while offering my translation services. Some of them were kind enough to pay me standard rates even when I was just starting my translation career at the time. I still remember one client who hadn’t paid for my work in years and I had let go.

Having experienced both working as an office worker and self-employed, I’ve rounded up the top reasons people are unhappy at work and what to do to help you lead a happier life in your current job role.

You’re feeling unappreciated at work

Humans always need recognition and if it goes unappeased, you will feel unhappy. I bet that half of your office feels unappreciated. I also feel the same when a client wants me to deliver a good translation with a tight schedule and under a standard rate. That’s really worse!

You can create an initiative to show everyone else they are appreciated. Start a habit of appreciation. Start thanking people and noticing their hard work. If you treat everyone with appreciation, they will most certainly make an effort to appreciate you back. Someone just has to start doing it first, why shouldn’t it be you?

You’re underpaid

People who are unhappy at work because they feel underpaid are stressed about money, they are working hard and it is going unappreciated. It is making you feel unhappy because all the hard work you are putting in isn’t being appreciated enough.

Let me ask the question, do you just feel unappreciated? Or are you really being underpaid? Maybe it is because you have taken more responsibilities and you feel like you aren’t being rewarded accordingly. Increasing bills in our life and more work is coming in and it’s being unrewarded and you feel like you need a reward for handling all this stress. You need more money to pay for more stress relief.

If you feel underpaid, it is because you don’t love what you’re doing and it does not work the amount of stress for your salary.

You hate your boss

I never experienced this before, but I heard a story from my friend that she didn’t like her boss so much because she was worse at managing money and doesn’t appreciate her employees, that’s why she resigned.

If you have an issue with your boss, it’s time to do something about it. If you walk into the office every day and hate your boss, there is no room for growth. You need to decide to find a way to make this work.

You either can discuss your issue (team up with your coworkers) with your boss and find a way you can both work together. Or you can improve your communication skills with them so your boss will respond to you better because they feel heard and understood. If you can’t reason with your boss, find a way to work around them so you don’t have to rely on them.

You are not responsible for your boss’ behavior but you can control your actions and reactions moving forward.

You hate your co-workers

Your happiness at work is dependent on your environment, and if you spend 40+ hours of your week in a place that you don’t like, you will be unhappy at work. And as social creatures, we are forced to socialize with our co-workers. And co-workers play a huge part in this. If you are surrounded by negative people who don’t make you feel good and a drop in self-confidence.

What you can do about this? You can either avoid them or try to change the narrative to a more positive judgment. When the co-worker drives you mad, re-write who you think they are and see the other side of the picture. Maybe s/he envies you because you’re doing a good job or s/he just simply doesn’t like you. Some people are just incompatible, if you can’t change them or accept them for who they are, simply avoid them at all costs.

You are overworked

I have experienced this one before. We all get burnt out from work as work comes into the flow of the business. At some point, the pressure and stress get to be a little too much, especially when we have sacrificed our personal life just to keep on top of our increasing workload.

If you feel overworked, here are some self-care that I did to stay away from the burnout:

• Set boundaries at work. If your work hours stop at 6, you clock off at 6. Work shouldn’t be your life, and you have to set healthy boundaries because you need to keep on top of your mental health.
• Stop helping out and learn to say no to anything that isn’t important. Find a way to reduce your workload by delegating some tasks or getting programs to automate parts of your job role.

All of these issues can make you feel unhappy at work. Sometimes your job just sucks, your boss is just bad at managing the company, and no matter how positive you are, people are always unappreciative. And not everyone can just quit their job whenever they feel like it, you have bills to pay, a social life to maintain, and people who rely on you.

I just want to say and remind you that happiness is completely within your control. How you handle your happiness at work is completely up to you. You can control the environment you are in, you can control what you think, and you can make an effort to learn to see things in another way because even if you quit, not everything will always be “beautiful”.

Have you ever felt unhappy at work? What can you do about that? Let me know your story below.