How To Have More Fun In Your Career

By michellebell | March 23, 2021

Freedom Is Important

Chances are, you aren’t going to stumble across a job that you find really fun. It’s possible, but it takes work.

They usually start off fairly interesting, and then over time, you start getting sick of all the tedious little things that make your job boring.

The problem with conventional employment, is you don’t really have much control over your day-to-day activities.

You USUALLY just have to perform whatever mundane task your boss tells you to do, and if you’re lucky… you MIGHT be allowed to do these tasks without being micromanaged…

In other words, you don’t have a lot of freedom, in MOST workplaces.

If you want freedom, you have to basically become your own boss, which is scary…

This article is meant to show you that your career can actually be fun, whether you start your own business or decide to work for someone else.

Being Self-Employed Isn’t As Scary As You’d Think

Admittedly, the very beginning is terrifying, just like your first day of work at a new job is.

But just like with a regular job, that feeling goes away quickly, ESPECIALLY once you start making a little money.

There are TONS of different resources out there for learning everything you need to know to become your own boss. Online learning platforms, like Udemy and Teachable, are great ways to pick up some useful skills.

Many people, including myself, have training courses of their own that are designed to help people start businesses in specific niches. (Mine is designed for people who want to become FDN certified health coaches)

Once you get your first client, or sell your first couple of products, it becomes a LOT easier to realize that working for yourself is pretty much the exact same thing as working for someone else, EXCEPT you get to make the decisions.

All of those times when you’re sitting there thinking “I wish my boss would just let me do my job…” those are now nonexistent.

Do you still have to stress about paying your bills? Of course! You ALREADY stress over that when you’re working a 9 to 5 anyway.

The difference is, when you work for yourself, you can focus on increasing your income and fairly quickly get to a point where you make enough money to not have to worry about paying the bills.

Sure, you may be trading in worrying about bills for worrying about growing your business, but that’s a much easier type of stress to deal with.

AND you can have a whole lot more fun doing whatever it is you CHOOSE to do in your business.

Choosing Your Responsibilities

Starting off as your own boss WILL require you to do some boring and tedious stuff that you DON’T want to do… at first…

Unless you have enough money saved up to immediately hire other people to do all of the boring stuff, those boring tasks are going to fall on you for a while… and it sucks…

However, over time… you can start delegating pretty much every task you hate to other people.

If you want, you can delegate literally EVERY task in your business to someone else, eventually anyway…

I prefer to be actively involved in my business, because I love most of it, but there are some things I absolutely can’t stand doing.

So guess what? I don’t do those things…

I have my Virtual Assistant do them all.

I literally get to hire someone to clean my house, because I’d rather be working and helping people than spending my time cleaning.

Here’s A Fun Little Exercise

To realign my goals with the lifestyle I want, I periodically sit down and ask myself a few simple questions:

What have I done in the past that I would like to do more of?
What have I done in the past that I don’t want to do ever again?
What are some things I haven’t done that I’d like to do in the future?

It may sound silly, but this really helps me.

Designing Your Dream Life

The best part about entrepreneurship, and the whole point of this article, is that you have the power to DESIGN YOUR OWN DREAM LIFE…

If working 16 hours a day, like some entrepreneurs, doesn’t do it for you… don’t. Find a way to be efficient and get things done in however many hours you want to work… I work about 6 hours a day, Monday through Friday because that’s how much I want to work.

If you want to travel the world, then you can set up your business to allow that. Travel bloggers do it so why can’t you?

If you want to avoid people, then you can set up your business to allow that.

If you want to sit around and drink beer all day… then you can find a way. You could literally start a brewery, and make your primary task “Taste Testing”. I know it sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t. You can do whatever you want IF you run your business somewhat properly.

You probably won’t be able to have your work day be custom tailored to your preferences if you work for someone else.

They will be busy paying you to do all the boring stuff, while THEY get to have all the fun.

People have a misconception that work has to be… work… but the possibilities are endless IF you’re the one calling the shots.

Setting Up A Business “Properly”

There are many different ways to run a business, and many types of different businesses, all with their own nuances and circumstances, but there are a couple concepts that are applicable to ALL businesses, and will be key to allowing you the flexibility to have a good time.

These concepts are:

Automation

Delegation

Technology has made it possible to automate a LOT of the boring, tedious, and repetitive tasks that a company used to have get handled by an employee, or a business owner.

Automation tools, like Keap(Formerly known as Infusionsoft), Salesforce, and Zoho, can automate more things than you can probably imagine.

Automation won’t take care of EVERY single task, but it’s a very cheap way to get things done, and anything that can’t be automated can be delegated to someone else, if you choose.

With the popularity of the “Gig economy”, and freelance websites like Fiverr, Upwork, and even Craigslist, it’s cheaper and easier than ever to find affordable people to do whatever you need done.

You can even automate the hiring process, for the most part…

So why are you continuing to choose a life where you get told what to do and how to do it?

It doesn’t need to be that way anymore!

The reason why you see successful people enjoying life isn’t because they “got lucky”… it’s because they found a problem they enjoyed solving, got REALLY good at solving it, and then made money by training other people to solve that problem repeatedly for customers.

This allows the business owner to focus on the parts of the process they ENJOY…

While there are a lot of other things to learn as an Entrepreneur, automation and delegation are probably the most important if your goal is to have a good time.

Having a good time makes it easier to show up every day and work through all the struggles of a career.

What If I Don’t Want My Own Business?

Let’s face it… not everyone wants to deal with starting their own business… and that’s okay!

While owning your own business allows you to be more flexible in your approach, hope isn’t lost for the rest of us who don’t want to go through the hassle and the stress.

If you want to be an employee, but you still want to have more fun in your career, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

There are more jobs out there
If your work environment isn’t what you want, you don’t have to stay… While it can feel risky to leave a job, nothing is preventing you from looking for other jobs and switching until you find one that feels right.

Getting a job because “it pays well” is a quick way to being miserable
If you hate what you’re doing… is the money worth it? You can literally get a job in ANY industry that interests you, so why do something you hate?

If you love what you do, you’re more likely to try hard and advance in your position, and you can probably find a way to make up the pay difference if you actually try.

Work on building healthy relationships with your co-workers
I’m a bit anti-social, so for years I would keep work strictly professional… I wasn’t very happy during that time period…

Once I started relaxing a little bit, and interacting with my co-workers like an actual human being… I started having a lot more fun.

Who would have known that being pleasant and sociable would be fun?

Honestly, if you’re working for someone else… even if your boss is REALLY amazing, like mine, it’s not going to be as fun and flexible as doing your own thing, BUT… if you find the right company to work for, you can actually have a really good time.

If you’re already working for yourself and you need a little help with your automation, we can help, just let us know what you need 😉

Have a great day and good luck!