How Do I Know If I Like My Job?

Does the term “work-life balance” resonate with you? For many professionals, it represents the elusive goal of finding harmony between their careers and personal lives. However, a more winning approach is to make your work an integrated part of your life, not just something to counterbalance as the traditional view implies. To evaluate if you’ve found that elusive “career love” or if it’s time to start exploring options, you should ask yourself these five key questions.

Let’s be real – your job satisfaction can make or break your overall life satisfaction and happiness. However, that prevailing viewpoint promotes an artificial separation between “work” and “life.” That’s a recipe for resentment and burnout. A more rewarding approach is making your career an extension of your values and identity, not just an obligation to offset with hobbies and outside commitments.

After all, most of us spend over a third of our waking hours devoted to our jobs. Expecting to be drained and miserable at work, only “making up for it” outside of office walls is a losing proposition. You can’t truly lead a fulfilling life while being fundamentally unhappy with how you spend most of your time.

An unfulfilling job is like being in a relationship without that spark – just going through the motions. Having a great hobby or passion project outside of work can provide an outlet – but isn’t it akin to having an excellent affair to escape an unhappy marriage? It might provide temporary relief, but deep down you know it’s not fixing the fundamental issue.

It’s always difficult to leave a dysfunctional relationship, whether that’s with an employer or a human partner. Our fears, doubts, and inertia make it hard to break things off and seek out something better aligned with our needs. However, the longer you linger in a loveless work arrangement, the more damage you’ll do to your sense of self-worth, motivation, and zest for life.

The truth is, a fulfilling work relationship starts with shared core values that shape the company culture. Your job needs to align with your personal beliefs about what matters – that’s the “falling in love” part. Having your basic needs for fair pay, a good working environment, etc. met is the baseline that allows that initial attraction to blossom. But to go beyond just tolerating your job to actively loving it, you need a deeper emotional connection to the Purpose behind your work. You gotta be “in love” with your company’s mission and see how your role directly supports it.

This means that the company must have a clear purpose, for starters… But I digress.

So how can you evaluate whether you truly love your job or if it’s time to start looking elsewhere? Here are 5 key questions to ask yourself:

1) If people say you fit well with your work buddies, does that make you feel good about your job?

Having positive workplace relationships is important for sure, but are they genuine? You could get along OK with your coworkers during the typical 9-to-5, only to immediately shed that office mindset and persona the moment you’re off the clock, not giving them another thought until your next shift. That would signal the bonds are pretty superficial.

Perhaps, this corollary question will drive my point home: Do you wear your company swag on weekends?

2) Is your job a true source of fulfillment, beyond just the paycheck?

Sure, the paycheck allows you to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. But this is referred to as “workplace hygiene” only. Are you deriving any deeper sense of meaning, purpose, or pride from the work you do daily? If it’s just a soulless transaction of trading yourself for a salary, that’s unlikely to leave you feeling genuinely fulfilled long-term. True, quite a few people marry for money – but they admit missing that important “spark.”

3) Can you authentically be yourself at work, without the need to adapt to please others?

In an ideal situation, you don’t have to force yourself into an ill-fitting mould to stay employed. You can apply your natural talents and strengths without suppressing your personality or values. Having to constantly adapt yourself to suit an incompatible culture is exhausting and corrosive to your sense of self over time.

More probably, it is not sustainable. I have personally experienced this a couple of times. One team was openly sneering at my “unmanly” reluctance to go to the pub after work every day, while another, unrelated, team could not tolerate my unforgivable indifference to ice hockey. In the first example, the side effects of that “culture” on the guys’ health were obvious; in the second case, apparently, only I experienced the side effects.

4) Do you appreciate your job for what it is right now, not just what it could theoretically become?

It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of always waiting for the “next big thing” that’ll finally make your job click – promotions, team changes, new initiatives. There’s always a future carrot to chase. But are you actually deriving satisfaction from your current day-to-day? Or just running on a treadmill of perpetually kicking that can down the road?

This situation can materialize unexpectedly, after years of almost blissful work engagement. From my experience, the best thing is to give your relationship a timeline – and quit if nothing changes. Remember, that even if it helps you conceal a gap in your CV, you are not gaining any experience, and often even the pay is decreased (because you are not delivering).

5) Would you want your child to work for your employer?

This one cuts to the heart of it. If you take away all the rationalizations, would you enthusiastically recommend your kid pursue the same working situation you have now? If the thought gives you pause, that’s a wake-up call that something is amiss in your assessment of the job, and it’s time to move on.

I find this is the most powerful question. If the thought gives you pause, that’s a wake-up call that something is amiss, and it’s time to move on. Notice your hesitance early and act – leaving is always preferable to being let go. It’s better to be the captain of your ship than a passenger on someone else’s.

Ask yourself these five questions at least once a year

Ask yourself these five questions at least once a year. If you can resoundingly answer “yes!” to each one, that’s fantastic – you’ve achieved enviable career fulfillment that escapes many professionals. However, if you find yourself answering “no” to most of those queries, it’s time to have an honest reckoning with yourself. While it may be tempting to make excuses and settle for the status quo by rationalizing that no job is perfect, you deserve more than just tolerating your work. You deserve to genuinely love what you do each day and who you do it with and for.

At the end of the day, work comprises too huge a portion of our finite lives to just settle for a loveless transactional relationship. Maybe with some honest dialogue, you can rekindle the spark in your existing role, adjusting things to better suit your needs. Or maybe it’s time to face the truth that this just isn’t your perfect match anymore.

Have the courage to break free and get back out there dating – pursuing opportunities that truly inspire you and allow you to show up fully. Life is too short to persist in a dysfunctional work relationship once the flame has died. You deserve to spend your precious working hours feeling appreciated, purposeful, and madly in love with your labour, not merely enduring it. Don’t stay stuck in an unfulfilling work relationship out of inertia, fears, or a scarcity mindset. Life is too short to keep lying to yourself once the passion has fizzled out.