According to the statistics, 80% of working adults are not happy with their job. This unhappiness and dissatisfaction could lead to underperforming at work. In the long term, it could slowly lead to stress and could even grow to depression with many of being unaware.
We need to differentiate between underperforming in a job or staying in the wrong field of job. Before it is too late, as time waits for no man. We should quickly decide on what we would like to do for the rest of our lives. An average person spends about 90 000 hours of their life at work.
Signs of underperforming
1. Lack of focus at work
When you do not enjoy your job, you get easily distracted with external surroundings. It is a way your body language telling you what your priorities are. We always unconsciously do things our heart wants, more than the brain. Like the saying goes, “Put your heart at the work you do, you will definitely succeed!”.
Thus, we will tend to slack at work and find chances to the distractions at work. This stage usually happens not at the initial stage of the new job. It usually happens when we reach a comfortable stage and stable mode at work.
2. No goals or target set in mind of the current job
If you had experienced jumping into a career, you do not have interest in due to the course you took in college. You will realize that you would not want to follow the footsteps of your current manager or superior.
When this idea crosses your mind, you will be just doing the job for the sake of the money with no proper goals set in mind. This will happen when your performance review is around the corner, you will feel lost and there will be nothing in your mind to write about in your career goals page. Discussions with your manager will not be something you look forward as there is not excitement in your current role.
3. Always delaying work and taking short breaks
The day you newly start a new job, everything seems new and interesting to your eyes. You seem like a very highly motivated employee to start a new role. Your performance as a beginner is also reasonable at the first year.
However, as you reach the later years in the job, you slowly loss interest in your current job. Your work efficiency starts to drop, as you start to slow down and delay some work. Then when you start taking some annual leaves to have a get-away to escape work is also another sign you will soon fall into the underperforming category.
4. Struggling to keep up with the pace
When you could not perform the speed of your teammates of the same rank, it means you are clearly struggling to finish work. If you could not keep up with the deadlines set this may be the sign of underperforming. Depending also on how many deadlines you had missed, if just a rare occasion, there might not be an issue.
However, if work is not completed on timely basis for the long term, it indicates a poor work performance which needs to be seriously looked into.
Signs you are in the wrong job
1. You work just for the money, not passion
Working just for money would never give you the job satisfaction in life. If you are someone who hates Mondays and always looking forward for the weekends, it means you do not like the job you are in.
Weekends are just a temporary escape from the job you hate. If you love your job, you will always be excited to contribute and learn something new for your job in hand. Working for money at the initial stage of life when you just graduate is fine, as you need the money to fund the dream job which needs a certain capital.
2. You become depressed and stress when overworked
Do you realize when you do something you like for example, maybe playing a video game, time flies so fast? Half a day could be gone while into something you love and enjoy.
This applies to our work, if you are in a job with your interest, you will definitely put your whole heart and time on it without even thinking of time. If we are stuck in a job we do not enjoy, when given more tasks and needed to work more, we will become stress about it. If the work continues to increase and take so much of our time, it will eat up our energy. Then, we slowly become depressed when overworked after facing too much of stress in life.
3. Poor performance at work
There are some cases of employees who do not perform well not because they did not work hard enough. This can also happen because they are trapped in the wrong field.
Being trapped in the wrong field will cause many issues in coping with work loads and performance expectations in the company. Some people are just not made for a certain role.
Thus, no matter how much effort and support you provide them, they still struggle to perform to average expectations.
4. No self-awareness on what you are good at
If you are in the job where you cannot see results you wanted and you often feel lost about your career direction, this means you might be in the wrong job. When there is no self-awareness on what you are good at, means the current job did not unleash your full potential.
Billionaire “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban mentioned that “self-awareness is one of the most important skills for any professional.”
Many of us lack self-discovery to know ourselves better. It takes time, age, and many life experiences to truly know and be aware of what we are really made of.
Closing Thoughts
The root cause of the wrong career choice is usually due to wrong courses took during their college or university level. Some students who manage to pass their degree and enter the working world for the sake of personal financial crisis is one of the causes.
According to research, India has the most serious cases of implications of wrong career choices which lead to deaths.
India has one of the highest suicide rates among people aged between 15 to 29 years, the most vulnerable group being the ones studying in class 10 and 12 due to board exams related pressure. Every hour, one student commits suicide in India
-National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Before this problem becomes worse, country by country prevention steps like career counselling to young adults are very crucial. Family members, close friends and loved ones also plays an important role for giving moral support to every individual on a more suitable career path.
In life, we need to learn that change is the only constant. We as adults grow and change our interests as we mature. Acceptance and effort to overcome possible challenges to succeed in any career is equally important besides chasing your dream job.
