30 Career Management Tips — Enjoy your work

This month, I’m providing a career management tip-a-day (along with other posts) to help you trigger your own career management activities.

Today’s tip: Enjoy your work.

Let’s be clear: enjoying your work in a job on Corporate Earth is not easy. I tend to focus on this blog on the more pessimistic side of the work — the layoffs, the difficulty in making ends meet while still saving for retirement, the “always on” communications environment, and the management that leaves a lot to be desired (and I’m a manager…).

But, just as you have to do something proactive every day to damp down the fires, you also need to have a bit of fun every day on the job. Whether it is the satisfaction of what you have accomplished, the help that you provided a customer or co-worker, or listening to the venting of a coworker to help that person have a safe place at work, enjoying your work is necessary for your personal brand and your career.

No, it ain’t easy. But career management is not just a simple thing you do when looking for a position. Career management is everything: establishing and living your personal brand, having your finances in order so that you don’t bleed to hiring managers, performing at work so that your personal brand is fulfilled, and having fun in the process.

Life is tough. And it’s a journey. If you can’t enjoy the journey, overcoming obstacles along the way, why is work worth it?

Scot

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