Why Keeping A Job Is Similar To Keeping A Marriage

If you’ve ever been in any type of serious relationship, you know it takes a lot of work to keep a happy relationship - and even more so in marriage. If both parties aren’t content in the relationship, the chances for success are likely to be dismal. The same can be said when it comes to employment.

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Keeping A Job Is Like Keeping A Marriage

Keeping a job also requires a lot of work and effort from the employee, and if you start to cut corners and produce mediocre work, it might result with your employer asking for a divorce, so to speak. Taking your job seriously, as you would a marriage, is a good mindset to have when you’re employed. Here’s why:

Commitment Leads To Good Results

Like a marriage, keeping a job requires a certain level of commitment. According to a recent study by UCLA psychologists, 172 married couples were asked about their level of commitment. They found that “the couples in which both people were willing to make sacrifices... were significantly more likely to have lasting and happy marriages.” So, what does it mean for us career-wise? It means we have make the effort to show up on time, live up to your employers expectations (and then some), find solutions to problems in the workplace, and so on. Do we all necessarily want to do these things? Probably not. But they are necessary to keeping a job, and chances are, if your employer is happy and you’re doing everything you can to live up to your professional potential, your job will be a long-lasting one.

Communication Is Important

According to an article published on the PsychCentral website, “communication either makes or breaks most relationships.” The writer goes on to say good communication is more than just asking about how your spouse’s day went or what their plans are for the rest of the day. There are other ways of communicating such as: paying attention to body language, forcing yourself to listen instead of talking, and minimizing your emotions during heavy, important topics. Listening and paying attention to your boss’s body language could also be beneficial to your communication with him/her. It can be easier to gauge how he/she feels about certain projects or even the work you do for the company. Minimizing your emotions during important conversations with your employer could also help prevent you from handling the situation unprofessionally. Needless to say, building good communication with your employer could help your professional relationship blossom.

Learning From Your Mistakes Is Crucial

We all make mistakes, even if they’re small ones. However, whether or not we decide to learn from them is what determines if our relationships - romantic or professional - continue to have a future. Not learning from your mistakes not only shows that you’re not paying attention, but it also shows a lack of care for the job/relationship. Blaming others to take the spotlight off of you only makes matters worse. When you accept you made a mistake and make a mental note to not repeat it, it shows you are not afraid to take responsibility, according to this article. This is a great quality to have in both a marriage and the workplace. As professionals, we want to make sure we improve, and we can’t improve if we don’t learn from our mistakes. Photo Credit: Shutterstock