Losing interest in work is becoming more mainstream than ever before. The biggest reason is that employees are fed up with providing a dollar’s worth of value yet get pennies in return. Fair compensation is necessary to motivate you to keep going.
I’ve been there before. There were many times in my career where I was losing interest in work. It was a combination of a toxic work environment, bad bosses, and a routine that I wanted to break. When I no longer wanted to work, another company miraculously came in and offered me an increase in pay.
That motivated me to keep going. Then afterwards, I didn’t want to work again because I was working for a horrible boss. So then I switched jobs and everything worked out by the end. Currently, I’m in the best position I can ever possibly hope for in my life.
Even if a company offered me a 50% increase in pay I do not want to move, if I don’t get along with my potential coworkers. That’s the best position you can ever be in. I do not foresee a situation now in which I want to leave my current place of employment.
I do not care about maximizing my pay, I care about maximizing my job enjoyment. I’ve seen my friends get $300k job offers only to leave after 6 months because it was a toxic work environment. The money is important but it’s not the most important thing in your career.
The long term enjoyment of work is what ultimately matters in not losing interest in work.
Losing Interest in Work: 9 Reasons Why
Below are the distinct 9 reasons why you may be losing interest in work. I’ve been there before and it doesn’t feel great.
1) Losing Interest in Work? The Rewards Aren’t There
We are economically motivated creatures where incentives drive our behavior and decisions. We feel disrespected if we provide $100 worth of value and get $1 in return. The rewards have to be there for it to be worth it. There’s a reason why employee strikes is much higher in 2022 than in 2021.
Employees are fed up with the lack of rewards. They’re tired of giving so much for so little pay in return. It’s time to be much more demanding than before. Companies grow profits at 100% yet some companies give you a 0% raise in exchange for providing that value.
There are prospective employees out there who refuse to negotiate because they’re afraid of losing the job opportunity. That’s not negotiating from a place of strength, that’s negotiating from a position of weakness. You’re not a charity running a soup kitchen.
You need to get value in exchange for providing value. Otherwise, you’re losing interest in work, which isn’t good for anybody.
2) You’ve Been Doing the Same Work for Years
Some people like routine. Other people need to do something new year after year to keep themselves interested in their work. When you get in a schedule and a routine year after year without doing anything new, you could be losing interest in work.
People don’t want to do the same work over and over again. Just like how we don’t want to eat the same thing over and over again for the rest of our lives. Variety is the spice of life that keeps you on your toes year after year. You deserve to be interested by your work, too.
We spend 1/3rd+ of our lives working. When we spend that much of our lives working, we should work in an exciting and interesting workspace. It won’t be exciting every single day but it shouldn’t get monotonous and boring year in and year out.
Life is hard but it should never be boring. You get a say in how your work makes you feel.
3) Your Coworkers Make the Job Worse
I’ve worked with some bad coworkers before. One coworker literally went up to my boss and yelled at her with everyone watching. His bosses reprimanded him thereafter but that kind of a person was just a bad person to be working around. His attitude was awful and terrible.
You’re losing interest in work because your environment should be conducive to a productive work environment. It shouldn’t come with a slide and a pool to enjoy work in. However, it at least shouldn’t be a negative work environment, full of distractions.
The “open office” concept has taken companies by storm because it saves them money. However, when you actually work in that environment, it actually gives you a bit of PTSD. The loudness of the office and you never know when someone is going to pop in and disrupt your work flow.
Your bad coworkers then just make it infinitely even worse. It’s more common than you think.
4) Your Boss is Bad
Employees don’t leave jobs, they leave bad bosses. Some bosses are so bad that they can’t even admit that they’re bad, even when the answer is right in front of them. You’re losing interest in work because bosses make the job, not anyone else.
It’s someone who has leverage and power over you. If they want to make your life miserable, they have the absolute power to make your life miserable. Your options are limited at that point. The only thing you can do then is to find another job or to go through with a lawsuit, and even then it’s an uphill battle.
It’s not right to go into work every single day and feel like your workplace is a battlefield. I’ve been through that before and it doesn’t feel good. A good boss is worth more than any amount of money in the world. I’ve seen so many of my friends in their 20s voluntarily give up $200k, $300k jobs.
Just because their bosses were bad. That tells you something.
5) It’s Not Your Passion
If you don’t at least tolerate your work, you shouldn’t be doing it. The best spot is to be passionate about your work. Currently, I love and adore my job so much that I don’t ever see myself doing anything else ever again. There’s no one else I would rather work for than my current company.
If you’re losing interest in work, it may be because it’s just not your passion. MrBeast said this perfectly. If you don’t love what you do, why are you even doing it? Why are you spending another second contributing to work if it’s not what you want to be doing?
While I wouldn’t go that far because I firmly believe you shouldn’t follow your passion, you should still enjoy the work you do. Not be miserable at it. It’s one thing to work a job or a career. It’s another to work a calling. It just feels different and the differences are very stark.
Make sure to like and enjoy what you do on a daily basis.
6) Losing Interest in Work Because You’re Already Wealthy
This is a good problem to have. Some people are already so wealthy and rich that they don’t need to work another job ever again for the rest of their life. If you’re losing interest in work because you already have all the money in the world, then more power to you!
This is the best position to be in. If you’re already so wealthy, you have no need to work a job that no longer interests you. It’s time to negotiate a severance package and focus your time, effort, and attention on other things that give joy and value to you.
You already have the money to do anything and everything that you want in your life. There’s no point in wasting your time doing another second of something that you dislike doing. Employees pursuing early retirement is a legitimate fear of many corporations these days.
As labor participation lowers, the supply of employees are declining and therefore the cost will increase. It will be interesting to see how this labor imbalance unfurls in the coming decades and years.
7) The Company Isn’t Doing Well Financially
Even though we may not like working for our employer, we still want our employer to be doing well financially, deep down. It’s what gives us security and confidence that we’ll still have jobs the next day and the subsequent days going forward.
I worked in an unprofitable department before. It was scary and I’ve seen firsthand what layoffs are like. It was so scary that there were many companies within the same department who flat out left the industry altogether.
Even the most passionate anti-9-5 employee out there wants the company to be doing well.
That’s how they have security in knowing that they’ll put food on the table the day after. When our 9-5 is our main source of income, we are rooting for our company to win and make record profits year in and year out. The feeling of instability just isn’t worth it.
I’ve been fortunate to not have been part of any layoffs so far but I’m not naive to think it can never happen to me.
8) You Don’t see a Path Upward
We like upward mobility. We don’t like getting paid inflationary increases every single year. Our careers should be upward moving, in general. If you don’t see a path upward and you are an ambitious professional, then that may be why you’re losing interest in work.
When we feel stuck, like we can’t move up or down, we feel unhappy. Whether we like it or not, we still enjoy the feeling of pain more than feeling nothing. We’re human and we need to feel emotions to feel alive. No matter what your work is, you should see a path forward and upward.
When you don’t experience any sort of progress is when you question whether everything is worth it or not. You want to see change because it’s what excites you. There are dead end jobs and there are jobs where you will be pigeonholed.
Life is not all sunshine and rainbows where people give you everything. If you are in one of these dead-end jobs, it’s time to look for other options.
9) Your Friends are Getting Better Jobs
No matter how much we logically know we shouldn’t compare ourselves to others, we just can’t help it. When I was making $100k, I saw my friends get $150k jobs and I felt bad. When I was making $150k, I saw my friends get $200k jobs and I felt bad.
And so on and so on. You’re losing interest in work because you know, deep down inside, that you have no way of catching up to your friends. Your friends are just getting much better jobs and it somehow, magically takes something away from you.
I’ve been there before. No matter how much, “their story isn’t your story” message others tell you, you still just can’t help yourself. It happens to the best of us. If you’re losing interest in work because of what’s going on around you, that’s perfectly understandable.
After time, you either start to get used to it or you look for better opportunities and job that suit your interests and talents. That’s the circle of employment.
Losing Interest in Work Happens to All of Us
There is absolutely no one who got to the top without feeling like they were losing interest in work. If you felt it, everyone else felt it at some point too. Many of my coworkers at my prior jobs went through this slump, time after time, without fail.
I don’t project and see myself ever feeling that way ever again, but there’s no guarantee. There’s always some change that can happen that changes your career. When you are losing interest in work, you might just be experiencing burnout and need to know how to handle burnout.
One of my prior bosses had opportunities to move up in the company and voluntarily chose not to apply for the position because she was already so burned out. She was losing interest in work and when the company got acquired and they offered her a severance package, she gladly took it.
More and more employees are choosing to leave work altogether than ever before. The US gained 2.5 million millionaires in 2021. What are the chances those millionaires are going to stick around and work for companies who don’t value them?
Very few, if any, wealthy people choose to put themselves in that situation. The labor participation rate is declining every single year. Even Amazon is worried they’ll run out of employees to hire eventually. When employees are losing interest in work, it becomes a real problem.
It will be interesting how everything unfolds by the end of it all.
Losing Interest in Work: 9 Shortlist Reasons
- Losing interest in work? The rewards aren’t there
- You’ve been doing the same work for years
- Your coworkers make the job worse
- Your boss is bad
- It’s not your passion
- Losing interest in work because you’re already wealthy
- The company isn’t doing well financially
- You don’t see a path upward
- Your friends are getting better jobs
