How Can You Use Gratitude to Start a Change Process When Dissatisfied?

Being grateful is one of the characteristics of happy people. They don't take life's good things for granted; instead, they appreciate them and give thanks for them. The relationship works the other way, too. To be happier, take the first step by being grateful for what you already have and appreciating it. This is true for any area of your life, including your work. If you feel very unhappy at work, you will likely need to take further steps to change your emotional state; however, gratitude is always a good starting point. And you can find things to be grateful for even if you are deeply dissatisfied with your work.  

When you are dissatisfied with work or any other area of your life, the general tendency is to complain a lot about it. By focusing attention on the negative aspects through complaining, your dissatisfaction will grow. This means that you focus on what is missing or what you dislike in your work and keep it there for a longer time. It is fine to feel and acknowledge your dissatisfaction, but then you should move away and look at what you can do and change to create a more satisfactory situation. However, when your dominant feelings about work are negative, you endanger both your happiness and success.

When you set your goals from this emotional state of dissatisfaction with feelings of lack and not enough, you are actually "running away" from an unsatisfactory or negative situation. You don't think in terms of what you really want and how you can achieve it; it is just the "anything else, not this" wish. The result is often the decision to change jobs without any deeper analysis. Dissatisfaction most often comes from within, and not from the circumstances or your job. It could be the result of your attitude, mindset, lack of skills, bad habits, lack of confidence and assertiveness, etc. Even if you change jobs, you take all these internal factors with you to the new job. Start by changing your attitude and mindset toward your work. If you still consider it necessary, you can also consider changing jobs.

When you are in this state of dissatisfaction, you might blame external factors for your situation. When you blame your boss, colleagues, upbringing, company, place of living, country, etc., you give up your power to change your life and increase your happiness by not taking responsibility. Complaining and blaming others are behaviours that rob you of an important part of the energy you could invest in finding and implementing solutions. Gratitude always comes in handy in such situations to shift your emotions and energy. 

There is no perfect job; therefore, you will always find things you don't like and are dissatisfied with. You can learn to manage or accept them. The opposite is also true: there is no such job where everything is bad. No matter how dissatisfied you are with your job, you can find something to be grateful for. This is the starting point for changing your attitude towards your work. 

Start looking for positive aspects of your job. They are usually things you have taken for granted.

First of all, you can be grateful for having a job and a regular income. Are you dissatisfied with your salary? Think about and be grateful for everything your salary makes possible in your life. Then, set yourself the goal to get a pay rise or a better-paid job. But don't complain about your salary.

What else is positive in your job and at your workplace? Make a list of the positive aspects and be grateful for them.

If you are grateful, it doesn't mean that all is perfect, you are fully satisfied and cannot aim for more. But learn to aim for more from the position of accepting gratefully what is and doing everything in your power to achieve your goal, instead of the energy of dissatisfaction and neediness.

Being grateful doesn't mean you ignore the negative aspects of your life. You recognise and acknowledge them and decide to change them. You enjoy all good things in your life and are thankful for the positive aspects while consistently working on something better. 

This is the general process of implementing change by starting with gratitude:

1. Decide that you want to be happier at work and commit to doing everything in your power to increase your joy, satisfaction and fulfilment, and, as a consequence, your overall happiness. Remember that you can fully control your mindset, attitude, habits and intentional actions responsible for about 40% of your happiness.

2. Make a list of things, experiences, relationships, results, etc. that you are satisfied with and have given you joy, satisfaction and fulfilment. These are the ones you can be grateful for now, and you would want to keep them or do more of them in the future.

3. Start being grateful and giving thanks for all the joyful and positive aspects of your life. Don't only say or write down your gratitude sentences. Feel genuine gratitude. When you start your gratitude practice, it might be difficult to feel genuine gratitude if you have been deeply dissatisfied with your work for a long time. Keep practising because your feelings will slowly shift from negative to positive.

4. Make a list of everything you are dissatisfied with, you feel you do not have or do not like in your present job and workplace.

5. While regularly practising gratitude, turn the elements from your list of dissatisfactions into what you want instead. Go through your list and ask yourself for each entry:

• "What do I want instead?" (i.e. What kind of tasks? What kind of colleagues or boss?)
• "How do I want to feel?"
• "What do I want to experience?"
• "How can I eliminate or reduce the activities I don't like?
• "If there is nothing I can do about an activity, what new point of view can I adopt towards this activity?"
• "How does this activity contribute to the bigger picture?"

6. When you have the list of what you desire to change in your job, you can ask yourself what you can do to achieve them. For example:

• You might need to talk to your boss about the content of your job or your salary.
• You can get involved in company projects or become a mentor to add more value and meaning to your work.
• You could attend a training course to improve your skills if the reason for your dissatisfaction is underperforming due to a lack of certain skills.
• Reframe a challenge into a learning process.

The solutions can be multiple, depending on what makes you unhappy and dissatisfied.

7. Celebrate each small win. While working on your goal to become happier or change jobs, do not forget to continue acknowledging what you have and what gives you joy and be grateful for them. 

When you are thankful for the small gifts and joys of your everyday working life, you cannot be dissatisfied because you cannot experience positive and negative emotions at the same time. You also change your overall motivational drive. Instead of a "moving away from" type of motivation, you will be driven by the positive "moving towards" your desired work experience.

Remember that a gratitude practice is not the remedy for everything. Gratitude helps you to be more positive and have more energy to implement necessary changes. Besides being grateful, you need to work on your beliefs, attitude, habits, skills, and grow as a person to become happier and more successful at work. 

If you are new to practising gratitude, get inspiration and tips for starting your gratitude practice from the "21 Tips to Practise Gratitude" PDF guide.