How important is it to love your job?

[Greentoytractor]

Or do you see it as a means to an end?

My job can be boring, stressful and senior management a bit toxic. But it pays well, is flexible, decent line manager.

Is it enough to try to focus on seeing it as something to facilitate my personal life, or should I be aspiring to more?

Sounds great, I think that ticks enough boxes to love it some of the time. There’s no job I’d love every day.

My opinion on this has changed in the last year or 2.
I used to LOVE my job. Loved the company I worked for. The people and everything, great..but I was massively underpaid and overworked, I was headhunted for a more senior role more money and went for it.

In the last 2 years I have realised that now I have more money, more flexibility, better job title for future progression BUT the pace is slow, some people are toxic,

I realised you cant have it all... or very lucky if you do... so now I just work to facilitate my life.

I always thought id try and get another step up again in salary and job role but now im thinking why bother...

I think "love" is too narrow. We spend a lot of time at work so ideally we shouldn't dread spending 40+ hours doing what we do. I think it you get belonging, stretch, pride in your contribution and if your lucky being around people you respect and like then that can be enough.

My job is similar to what you describe, stressful with too many politics at times but I'm paid well, I have a reasonable work life balance and I'm respected. I'm content where I am for now. I worry I'm settling but the package is very good for what I'm doing and I may not get this somewhere else (or I might because I lack self confidence sometimes!).

I don't think you need to love your job but you do need to like it as you spend a significant amount of your life doing it. If you are ever in a position where you are crying before going to work and becoming unwell it's time for a change

You don’t have to ‘love’ it but you can’t hate it

there are 3 pillars of life:

family/relationships
hobbies + interests
work

they can either be roughly in balance or 2 have to be amazing to make up for a reduced third pillar

’Hating’ something (whichever pillar it is) is too high. We spend 50+ years at work, we need to find something we moderately like.

I used to like my job but I never LOVED it.

It was a means to an end and funded a great life and early retirement but that is all it meant to me.

I didn't think it was important until I started doing a job I love. Now I realise I spend close to 50% of my life at work, loving what I do has vastly improved my mental health.

I think it's a blessing not many people are lucky enough to get though, and being satisfied with your job is enough. But you can't survive long doing something you hate.

I find my work very meaningful, and have genuinely great colleagues. I work with the unemployed and a lot of them are simply burnt out from caring roles. They tend to say I need a job that I won't take home.

Your attitude can quite often change depending on what stage of life you're in. So when kids are small people want less demanding jobs.

Quite often they say my long term plan is A, but it's not possible right now, so I need to do B instead to keep money coming in.

I used to love my job and there are still parts that I do. Sadly it's changed beyond all recognition and even the best parts are now micromanaged. Also my 'customers' have much less interest in anything these days!
I am a secondary school teacher!

I’ve always looked at it from the perspective that I don’t really need to “love” my job, just be good enough at it that I don’t find it a struggle or stressful. I have a high boredom threshold, which has probably served me well over the years, and I also ultimately know that I didn’t choose this line of work for the personal fulfilment in the first place, so I’ve never expected to have it. I find pockets of genuine enjoyment in some elements of it, and humour in some of the more nebulous activities. They pay me a very good salary and I have a lot of flexibility, which I then use to facilitate all the things I do love, in my personal life.

I honestly think it depends on where you are in your life, and how fulfilled or stressful other areas of your life are.

I'm 45 and have taken a backwards step at work in order to reduce my hours to 3 days a week. I'm studying for a degree which may or may not open up new career opportunities, but I'm happy working to live. My DH is 10 years older than me, we're financially secure, I have friendships and hobbies that make me happy, and I just no longer want to climb a ladder that doesn't add anything to my wider life. (That's not some kind of weird dig that anyone who wants to pursue a career isn't fulfilled; it's just that for me, I want to spend more time doing the things I love and work isn't one of them). Obviously I recognise that I'm incredibly lucky to have a choice.

My situation is two young kids, no real desire to climb the career ladder any higher (my personality isn't really suited to senior management)... I really value the flexibility I have at the moment, although trying to think of ways I can enjoy the job itself more (or at least how I can place more emphasis on enjoying things outside of work)

I think this explains it perfectly.
I'm quite senior and there's a more senior role opening up that people are surprised I'm not applying for. But my job is flexible, it allows me enough money and time for my family - sure id like more money but that would drastically reduce time for hobbies/ social life/ family and I'm doing OK now so those pillars are good.

If you're happy with how your job fits your life now then I'd say that's enough. You might find when your children are older you want to aim for more but who's to say you have to? I'm certainly not gonna push myself into this next level just because others expect it.

I enjoy my job most of the time. I am very experienced and am at a much lower level than I could be, so I only have to work about 16 hours a week to deliver what is expected of me and earn a FT salary.

I value my free time very highly and wouldn’t sacrifice that for more money. I definitely don’t want more responsibilities.

I think myself very fortunate.

I went to school post-secondary for 10 years combined, as I had high aspirations for some career choices, found post graduate the job market to be slim Pickens, ended up doing some low skill minimum wage jobs just to pay the bills, was encouraged by my loved ones to stop doing that and to pursue a completely different career path which is not one I went to school for, and not one that I had been doing in real life but something completely different, which although it did have its ups and downs, for the most part has been a dream job.
Although, it did not pay extremely well. Tons of hours, and if you figure out the amount of hours to the amount of money, a pittance.
But I loved it.
Now due to global trade circumstances, I've lost it, and I'm grieving that,
And I am entering the workforce yet again, and it'll be back to a low skill minimum wage job which will pay the bills better, but I'm already not looking forward to. Although I'm sure it'll be fine in the end, it simply won't satisfy my top level on the Maslow hierarchy of needs as my old job did.
But, we do what we need to do.
Life changes, and so must we.

Loving it is a bonus. But it should not make you ill. No job is worth that.

For me I like to think about how literally 99% of human beings who ever lived, lived unbelievably tough lives toiling in the fields doing back breaking work.

Dying in childbirth. Getting raped. Insert terrible misery here.

Honestly, if you sort of dislike your job but it's not that bad but your boss can be a twat sometimes, but you've got food on the table and your children have shoes and your boss doesn't feel your boobs up and there's nothing you can do about it...

You're doing just fine.

Depends on length of service and how much things have changed. I checked out just before 2019. I put my all in where applicable, although I am finding it awfully hard to not be sarcastic. My LM is a moron, but I tolerate it. I can't afford to leave at the moment and it'd honestly be a shame to do so. My job is fine, it's just the damn management.

Love this description - thanks for sharing.

I was made redundant last year from a job I loved, and it hit me for six. I took some time out and am now in a p/t job that is flexible, close to home and enjoyable most days. It's varied, but there's not much room for progression in the company. So not sure how long I'll stay there.

I'm very fortunate that I have a great network of friends, a very busy social life, hobbies, interests etc so I guess you can't have it all, and that's ok. I've never had a career and at times it has affected my confidence, but that's because I was wrongly focusing on how strangers perceived me, and sometimes felt like if I'd tried harder I could have been a successful <insert vocation/fancy career/job title here>. By all other measures apart from my job title and salary, I have a very happy and healthy life.

Love what you said too @StruggleFlourish re: life changes and so must we.

Sorry, not all of that waffle was in response to your lovely post @LaurieFairyCake !

You need to not hate what you do 5 days a week. It might not be the actual job but the people you work with that make your day.

I did a job for 19 years and in that time there were some very high highs and also some very low lows, but the people were great and we got through it. I was eventually made redundant and I now love my job. I want to log in and enjoy the work - it is very frustrating at times but worth it.

You might be doing just fine, but you are worth more. Just because it’s ’always been’ it doesn’t mean it always has to be. Every parent hopefully wants better for their children.