15 Ways to cultivate a healthy relationship with your job and enhance your job security

Most workers don’t realise that they have a relationship with their jobs.

In fact, for most people, the words “job” and “relationship” are not featured together as part of their vocabulary.

We will usually associate “relationships” with people, family, and friends.

However, we do have relationships with everything including money, physical things and even our jobs.

In essence, relationships are about how two or more concepts, objects or people are connected together or are in the state of being connected.

So how can we maintain a healthy connection or relationship with our jobs so that it will give us the job and income security?

What can we do to improve our relationship with our jobs so that we can have the joy and freedom in what we are doing?

It is without a doubt that we spend a large part of our lives working in jobs. Therefore, it is vital for us to consciously think about cultivating a positive and healthy relationship with our jobs and the way we earn our salary or wages.

Like all relationships, it’s only through love and commitment that we can improve ourselves and our relationship with our jobs and the money we earn from working in jobs.

Unfortunately, many people have an unhealthy relationship with their jobs.

Sometimes it’s not their fault.

They may have been taught to think about their jobs in unhealthy or unhelpful ways since childhood. Their parents or grandparents may have communicated some negativity about their own jobs.

They may have bad experiences around their jobs like being passed over for a job promotion, being caught up with office politics, suffered in the hands of ruthless or inconsiderate managers, experienced retrenchments and layoffs, or just being forced into retirement.

People may carry around these bad feelings and experiences throughout their lives. They also tend to “infect” others with their negativity.

As a result, instead of inheriting positive and constructive attitudes, feelings, and beliefs about our jobs from our family members and friends, we may have inherited unhealthy and negative perceptions that are being carried throughout our own working life.

Why cultivate a healthy relationship with our jobs?

There are many good reasons why we need to think about cultivating a healthy relationship with our jobs.

It will certainly help us enjoy what we are doing, developing positive and healthy relationships with your managers and colleagues, and future-proofing ourselves.

We can create a solid foundation for securing our jobs and incomes where job security is ‘not’ dead.

The reality is that you can’t really enjoy a good relationship with anything or anyone including your job (and money) unless you’re willing and committed to love it through thick and thin and to constantly work and build on that relationship, continuously nurturing and enhancing it.

Here’s the thing.

Love is a choice, an intention, and a commitment.

It’s a choice that we consciously make.

It’s not only an emotion or feeling but also behaviour, belief, and understanding.

It’s ‘love’ when we do choose to love our pets even though they scratched us.

It’s ‘love’ when we choose to help someone even though we might be running low on patience and energy.

Love is all about being committed to take the time and doing the things that will make us emotionally connected with people and things. There is skin in the game for us.

It is good to remember that we are humans built for the community where no person is an island. There will always be an element of dependency.

It’s only through relationships that we establish that emotional dependence and self-worth.

Having a healthy relationship with your job will enable you to future-proof yourself and develop a strong foundation to secure your job.

By building on this strong foundation, you can create a higher likelihood of income security over the longer term.

Loving our jobs, always

Think about someone you love so dearly.

What feelings about this person that you have?

Do you have similar feelings for your job?

Why do you think you have these feelings?

What can you do about it?

Through commitment, when we have invested our time and energy by loving people around us, our relationships will continue to improve.

Like all other important relationships in our lives, relationships with our jobs should be improving or maturing as long as we give our jobs the respect and honour they deserve.

Give attention it deserves

When someone we love comes into the room, we will take the time to acknowledge that person.

Regardless of what you were doing at that time or how you can feel at that moment, you will definitely give that person attention regardless of how inconvenient it was for us.

You just don’t tell them, “I’ll talk to you later!”

What aspect of your job do you need to give attention to right now?

Is it skills, experience, or knowledge?

Is it a relationship with your manager?

Make time for it

Because you respect your relationship with your partner or the person you love, you would want to set aside time in your busy lives to spend time with each other.

We ‘make time’ for the person we love.

We prioritise time.

While date nights for couples are important, what parts or aspects of our jobs do we need to spend time on so that we have a better relationship with our jobs?

Do you need to make time dedicated to building relationships with your direct reports?

Prioritise it

As the busyness of our lives takes over our daily schedules, we must choose how we are going to prioritise our actions and activities to fit in what’s important.

Whether it is conscious or unconscious, the prioritisation of our activities tells us how much we value ourselves and how we see ourselves and others.

If we want to place more value on our jobs, then we need to make a conscious choice or decision to prioritise it over other things like watching TV or going to the games.

Whatever precious free time we have, we do need to spend time upgrading our knowledge or skills so that we are ready for that promotion or for our next job move.

Celebrate the good

When a child achieves something, we give them some sort of recognition.

When you have made positive progress in your job, we need to celebrate that milestone.

A job promotion or a job well-down calls for celebration with our loved ones. Such milestone celebrations are to be cherished and enjoyed.

Forgive the bad

When people you love make mistakes or have wronged you, you usually don’t get angry with them.

Instead, you acknowledge their mistake, forgive them and most importantly, you move on or forward.

When our jobs or aspects of our work do not meet our expectations, we need to remember that negative experiences are just blips in any relationships. They will pass us by.

There’s no point in feeling angry and bitter about the job forever, which will only intensify the problem rather than eliminate it.

Keep a sense of humour

It’s actually more fun to be with someone who is fun, joyful and willing to laugh at themselves.

Keeping a sense of humour and be willing not to take things so seriously are killer combinations for successful long-term relationships.

Do remember that your job doesn’t have to be super serious.

It’s really good to have some fun while performing your job.