Passion Deficit Disorder in the Workplace

A recent Careerbuilder survey found that 40% of workers say they have had difficulty staying motivated at work in the last year. As a result, employee turnover is expected to rise in the next year as disgruntled employees look for better positions and more flexibility in the workplace.

While the recession has caused employers to reorganize their operations to remain viable, it seems that many employees have felt neglected in the process. PDD (Passion Deficit Disorder) is obviously rife in the workplace. Or expressed another way, employees are not engaged! Does this apply to you and what are you going to do about it? Wishing and hoping that your employer will fix it for you, is not going to get you very far. And finding a new job may not happen for some foreseeable future.

One thing you might do is start living in the here and now. When we compare what we have now to how much more we had in the past or how much better off we were, we are going to become disgruntled. The past is over. Life is a series of cycles. They are not good or bad unless we decide to view them that way.

“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so” – William Shakespeare

At the other end of the spectrum, perhaps you are engaged in wishful thinking about how much better it could be. Planning for a better future is one thing. Constantly wishing you could already be living that future, without taking any sort of positive action, leads to dissatisfaction with the present. It leads to a life where the present is never good enough. Where you never even see the “silver lining” that might be hiding there because all your energy is being placed in the “good old days” or the “brighter future.”

If you start adopting the mindset to find the positive in the present, giving it your full attention and best efforts, that positive energy will help draw you to the better opportunities you are looking for. Continuing to find fault, blame and unhappiness with the current moment will only keep you locked in negative energies and attracting more of the same.

I recently watched a client go through an amazing transformation after she took notice of how her thoughts were keeping her stuck in unhappiness. Locked in a job she hated, she was spiraling out of control, finding it an immense chore to get up for work every morning. When she started focusing on doing her very best, even when faced with the most mundane of tasks, she felt more at peace. Soon thereafter, once her superiors started to notice a change in her attitude and demeanor, she was given greater responsibility and more fun duties. As a result she is now well on the way to getting a promotion that will bring her much more fulfillment.

So remember, to change your life, you have to change your thoughts! When you change your thoughts, you can change PDD (Passion Deficit Disorder) to PED (Passion Every Day).

If you are stuck on figuring out what you’re passionate about, the following book can give you some clues.