I'm bored of my job!

Life can get a little repetitive at times and a phrase all too many people seem to be saying these days is ‘I'm bored of my job!' When you have been doing a particular job for quite a length of time familiarity can definitely breed contempt, and it's easy to become bored with your job and unhappy at work. For some people that ‘I'm bored of my job' feeling can bring with it the scary realisation that their career is stuck in a rut and generally going nowhere fast. If you fall in to this category then being bored of your job is much more of a problem.

The solution for anyone saying ‘I'm bored of my job!', is perfectly simple - get a new job! However, this is often easier said than done. If you're bored of your job the chances are that you have been doing that job for quite a while and it's not always easy to find a more stimulating job in a new field. If you are continually saying to yourself ‘I'm bored of my job' it doesn't necessarily follow either that you automatically know which particular field of work or new career would suit you better. Another common problem for people who are bored with their job is that it's not always easy to motivate yourself to look for a new one. If you are bored with your job it takes a great deal of effort during your precious evenings and weekends to put together a CV and send off job applications. It is all too easy to keep putting the problem off.

If all of the above seems familiar to you, an excellent solution to ‘I'm bored with my job' syndrome is to take a gap year. Gap ‘years' can be as short or as long as you like and can be whatever you want them to be. You can travel all around the world, just visit one particular country or area, spend your time chilling out or work on a rewarding volunteer project. The options are almost limitless and, whatever you decide to do on a gap year, it's highly unlikely you will find yourself saying ‘I'm bored of my job' at any point!   

Aside from the fun aspect of getting you away from a boring job and giving you the time to re-charge your batteries, gap years also have a more practical benefit for anyone who is bored of their job as well. For starters, gap years provide valuable ‘time out' away to enable you to give some serious thought as to exactly which future career might be more stimulating for you. Also, potential employers often favour candidates who have taken a gap year as they realise the positive aspects the experience can bring to a person.

If you are bored of your job and want to pick up some new skills and work experience to put on your CV, then gap years can be great in this respect too. It is possible to get working holiday visas for a number of countries and working abroad is an ideal way to make your gap year cash go further. If you are bored of your job the variety of different jobs you can apply for abroad is really diverse these days too - it is possible to do anything from teaching English in China to working on a ranch in the Aussie outback. Any overseas work you do may or may not be directly relevant to your future career, but the key thing is that you are getting away from that job you are so bored of - and picking up new skills and experiences in totally different environment at the same time.

A particularly rewarding solution to banishing that ‘I'm bored of my job' feeling is to do some volunteer work on your gap year. A common factor people often cite as being the prime reason they are bored of their job is that their work can often feel a bit meaningless at times. The great thing about working on a volunteer project abroad is that the work you do can give you a very real sense of doing something positive and worthwhile. For example if you are helping to re-build houses destroyed by the tsunami in Sri Lanka and witness the positive impact the work is having on the lives of people in the local community it is literally impossible to say ‘I'm bored of my job.' Volunteers on these projects return home having acquired valuable new skills and experiences to put on their CV, standing them in much better stead when they apply for new jobs.

Some people find themselves saying ‘I'm bored with my job' even though they realise that, deep down, they ultimately enjoy what they do. This is common when people have been doing the same job for a long time and simply feel the need for a temporary ‘change of scenery' in order to re-charge their batteries. An increasing number of employers are recognising this phenomenon and offering un-paid sabbaticals to staff, with the promise that their job will be kept open for a specified period of time. If you are bored of your job, but just feel the need for a career break before returning to the same role, then these sabbaticals are a perfect solution.      

If you are someone who returns home each day saying ‘I'm bored of my job' there is no excuse for not doing anything about it. Gap years are a great way to travel, have some fun, experience new things and kick-start a new career along the way.

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