ELLECanada.com uncovers key indicators of an unhappy career with the help from New York-based life coach, Daryl Close of Dynamic Life Creations.

1. Lack of motivation
Staring at the clock all day, hating Mondays, looking forward to Fridays every day, day dreaming and having no motivation to get up for work may mean you need to re-evaluate your current career.

2. Using work time to work on your hobbies
Are you constantly checking out art school courses, emailing design tips to friends, drafting up short stories on your lunch hour or rehearsing a dance routine in your head? Hobbies can be seen as the interests we wish we could focus on fulltime if we didn’t have financial obligations or if that hobby could provide a level of financial security. Working or thinking of your hobbies during work represents a distraction from the task at hand and is a sign that your focus is not on the job you are currently doing.

3. Admitting you don’t like your career.
This is self explanatory, if you say you don’t like your career then you don’t like your career. You should not quit tomorrow as you may have other reasons (eg. financial obligations) that are keeping you there. Close recommends you start exploring possibilities for change. Waking up one day needing to quit your job with no plan is not the way to go.

Jealously of others having what you want is another big signal. Jealously comes from the fact that your personal values are not being met by your current life and that you see what is important to you being lived out by someone else. For example, you may see someone who earns less but has their own business and works their own hours. If quality of life, having more time and running your own business is important to you than you may be jealous.

Put simply, if you don’t see a future for yourself in the career you are currently working in then you must consider making a change.

Close notes that, ‘sometimes we need a magnifying glass held up by someone else to see where real changes need to be made. Change is a process and knowing what your motivations, strengths, talents and interests will help you head in the appropriate career direction for you.’ He recommends that you take actions necessary to achieve what you want and make lists of how you are going to get there (in baby steps). One of his favourite sayings is, ‘if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got’.