To have COMPLETELY lost my work mojo?

[backintothefire]

I don't know what to do! I have completely lost all motivation for work these days and am really struggling to complete even the most basic tasks. I feel hugely resentful about work and dread Monday every week. Nothing about my work interests me or inspires me any more.

I used to love my job! But now every day is a slog and I hate it. I changed jobs a few months ago thinking it might re-invigorate me - NOPE! In fact now I feel even worse because it's clearly me that's the problem, not the job itself.

I honestly feel like I can't keep doing this. I've got 20+ years until retirement ffs. Anyone else feel the same? What's the solution?!

How’s everyone doing? Better than me, I hope!

I’m absolutely on one with this tonight. I think it’s actually PMS that’s making me feel worse today but who knows at this point.

I’m starting a new job next week (internal move/promotion) where I’ll be working for the loveliest person, on a great salary, playing to my specialism, blah blah blah. 3 years ago it would have been exactly what I wanted. But my current boss excitedly asked me this morning whether I was excited to start and I just thought ‘abso-fucking-lutely not’. This is not news to me but it really ruffled me to feel such a visceral reaction.

I told her I wasn’t and blamed health issues (definitely a massive factor tbf) - and my grumpy personality, generally - but on the inside, what little enthusiasm I had left for anything just disappeared.

I don’t really know what the answer is and I have no assets and no one to share the bills with so I feel totally stuck.

Grrr.

Sorry for the whinge. I just know that you lot understand.

Don't make too many life changing, scary decisions, because, well, menopause.

I feel exactly the same. I’m 50. I really liked my job not that long ago. Tried to get back into exercise but I seem to resent every part of my role. I’m also mortified after someone very senior picking up some stupid mistakes that I made recently. Came on here to start a thread on this very subject then stumbled on this. I don’t have a solution but am constantly having a word with myself!

This is how I have felt since I was 21 and entered the job market. Every job I have had has felt like this after a few months. I'm in my 40's and haven't found a way round this. I think it's fairly normal for people that need the money

Resurrecting this thread. Just had a week off, went away for a few days, pottered in the garden, went for long walks, did some hobby stuff, just had a lovely time and didn't think about work at all.

Opened up my emails this morning to a barrage of inane shit. Delete, delete, delete. Why are you asking me these ridiculous questions that you could find out the answer to yourself if you bothered to access the information you've already been given?? By 8.30am I was ready to throw my laptop out of the window.

I will never ever earn enough money to live, pay the mortgage etc without this job. This is it. Stuck. Miserable. Frustrated. Aaargh.

Just wondering how everyone is feeling now as I’ve also been feeling very little motivation for work recently!

You're not alone in feeling like this. I'm 43 with 2 little ones. It's hard work just to get them to school never mind have a job I feel passionate about. I think life at the moment drains you. I'm planning on exercise . I doubt itll male a difference but I'll try

I had no idea people feel like this. I thought it was just me and I needed to 'get myself together'. I can't say I have the solution but over the last few years everything just seems a bit grey. I'm finding the energy somewhere to retrain though. One thing I read though is that life is pretty meaningless in the abstract and that we have to create that meaning ourselves iyswim? The fallout is really that gap between wanting to create meaning and actually doing it - not least when you've actual responsibilities that preclude you from jacking it all in. In anycase solidarity

It's peri

Try and see the pros, rather than the cons.

Mine would include :

-Good money
-WFH
-Low professional standards from other staff, so I find it easy to shine
-Great benefits
-Big brand name company, so has a certain amount of kudos

@VladmirsPoutine
That's really good advice 👏

Why are you asking me these ridiculous questions that you could find out the answer to yourself if you bothered to access the information you've already been given?

^
Tell them this. I just forward the email previously sent, with the pertinent email highlighed in yellow. And that's the last time.

Gah

Am 48 and gradually starting to resent my work time. I think it is an age thing. I am tired. My passion is evaporating. I used to love my job so much I didn’t even want to go on holiday. I also used to work with people who were more fun. Everyone is feeling the same, moaning and complaining and the morale is rubbish. Covid had a lot to answer for too in terms of the culture at work. I like working from home but it is making me lazier and less involved. I think a whole heap of things have combined to ruin my love of work. I need to keep doing it for a long time though so as I am typing this out, I am starting to think this needs to change. Am going to try to figure out a way to get excited again and inject the fun into it.

So weird, I was half-heartedly thinking of this thread as just feeling so bored of work. Or rather, the work I'm doing at the moment. I can see other people doing other work that I'd love to have trained for but am now stuck in a role I've completely lost interest in. Most of it seems so pointless and I have too much to do and can't think clearly. But the money is quite good and I'm towards the end of my working life. My strategy now is just getting through each week.

I wonder if the pandemic highlighted how pointless a lot of our jobs are and the lack of motivation and the meaningless a lot of us are feeling just lingers on like a bad hangover from that time? Throw in the menopause for some of us and it's a really bad mix. We are going through yet another organisational restructure and have been asked to document our aspirations and suitability for a range of 'exciting' roles proposed in the new structure. My colleague dissuaded me from submitting mine, which simply read "I would like the desk by the window with the view of the tree please" I just want to stare out of the window.... That is all I have the energy for.

I think I'm just burnt out. Worked solidly in my career for 20 years. 9 months mat leave each time. Full time through the moon sleeping years. Kept on top of it all in work. Knew everything; cared about it all. Thought about work all the time. Stressed and snappy.

Then I moved jobs and realised I don't need to be as invested as I was. But that's made me feel more distant and less sharp. But I can't face working all the time anymore, even though on a night I don't work, I feel guilty that I'm not doing anything and worried I should be planning ahead more.

My kids aren't even little; I've done the really hard years and I coped. I worry that I'm going to get lost inside my head one day and not be able to very out. But I'm the main earner and dh is a lot closer to retirement than I.

Interesting to see this thread resurrected. I'll update that I was made redundant and am finding it harder to muster up enthusiasm to apply for jobs than I did to do the toxic workplace job I was glad to be made redundant from! So stick with it but get a new thing to jump to.

I wish I could retire now, but I'm a long way off that.

Saw this thread had popped up again on my Threads I'm On list! It's so interesting to see so many of us feel this way, but it's as if we're all at slightly different points along the continuum.

So...6 months on and in truth I am no more invested in or satisfied by my job than I was previously. I have, however, had a slight shift of perspective.

I have realised that a lot of what was making me miserable in work were self-inflicted expectations that actually bore little relevance to what people actually need from me as an employee.

So for example, when I break it down, my job mostly requires me to be good at A, B & C, but I've been trying to be good at A, B & C plus D, E F, G and X, Y & Z. And genuinely, it's pointless and unnecessary and a waste of my energy.

(And, to be honest, I've spent the last few months closely observing other colleagues, and realising that most of them are getting away with fucking murder!)

So I've decided to focus only on being really good at A, B & C (the things where I really 'add value' as an employee), doing only what is absolutely necessary of D, E, F & G, and mostly completely ignoring X, Y & Z. I've taken my foot off the gas, and realised that I'm not Omniscient, Brilliant, Available At All Hours Superwoman, and that's ok. Because nor is anyone else.

Plus I use the 'delete mail' button a lot more freely and go to the gym more often. And I appreciate the fact that I can do that without having a boss on my back.

I dunno - it still feels a bit of a shame not to love my job. But I am a bit more settled and have made my peace with a lot of what was upsetting me. And HRT patches have probably SAVED MY LIFE. I highly recommend them

I found this thread a while ago and thought 'yes!'

I'm mid fifties, divorced 10 years ago and did a career change shortly afterwards. Thought I'd found my dream job (but it was bloody hard work) then ended up doing it in a really toxic workplace so I left and went back to the corporate world in 2019. Fast forward through the pandemic when I realised what a crock of shit working was, and I'm dreaming of being able to retire 'soon'. 7 years left on my mortgage and coming to the end of a fixed deal soon, with the new deal having payments £167 higher. I've dropped my hours and do 4 days which does make a tad of difference (getting to the weekend sooner) , but tbh I think I need a few months of a mini retirement and to have paid my mortgage off to make me feel less knackered and more energised. I've had a number of health issues recently and family bereavement which have sharpened my focus.

But yeah - you're not alone op. Life shouldn't be like this.

I replied originally and am now even more pissed off with work than I ever was.

I'm a community mental health nurse and 56 years old. I'm pissed off with my job and the NHS. Don't get me wrong it's not the client group at all. So much of our work is 'tick boxing' and much of that is little to do with client care.

I'm in the assessment team. So often I see a client, they pour their heart out for an hour then I have to tell them quite a lot there is little I can offer them except ask a doctor to review their meds. Then I have to spend 2 hours writing it all up and ticking boxes.

We're overwhelmed by work and personally I hope for clients not to attend appointments as that buys me more time for write ups.

There's been reconfigurations in services which no one fully understands, except we're being landed with more work often at the last minute eg being put on the 'duty desk' to manage emergencies but were told a couple of days before and we've got clients booked in. I actually enjoy doing 'duty' but for all I complain about the rota being done only a few days in advance nothing changes.

We got a pay rise recently and September we were expecting back pay from April. My pay rise meant my pension contribution increased and I had to pay arrears and was worse off by £50. It was a smack in the teeth and tbh the final straw.

I received an inheritance after my parents died which I invested in property (I know, not popular on MN). The investment was really for retirement. I had tenants in there but they've given notice to go travelling. I'm now looking to sell it to release the money so I can retire before my NHS pension comes through. I'm hoping by Christmas I'll have one or both feet out the door.

I know this is an old thread, but yes, this sums it up. Parents of kids are being massively shat on right now. And they wonder why younger generations aren't having kids anymore.

I feel the same op. I've spent nearly 40 years working in jobs that you ahve to give a lot to needy people. Even when I had my first 2 kids I only took four and then five months mat leave and a year with the third when I had 3 kids under 5., so hardly a break. Every day I battle through traffic then listen to other peoples woes for eight hours then battle back through bumper to bumper traffic for another 45 mins. I am so done with it all but not easy to find something else or change career mid fifties. I have 12 years at least until retirement unless I come into money or something. It's soul destroying.

I could have written this. I started a new job a couple of months ago and it's almost like I was determined to dislike it from day one! This is NOT me. I'm usually a positive soul, unlike the resentful moan I'm becoming. To be fair though, my job is a lot of work for little pay ... and I now can't believe how much easier the old one was