This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2802, the importance of job satisfaction in pursuit of early retirement by Craig Stevens over at TyreBeforeDad.com, and I'm Dustin Molick. I read to you every single day of the year kind of like an audiobook, and then on Sundays I share an extra episode from another podcast in our optimal network, and today's comes from Optimal Finance Daily. Please do subscribe to or follow Optimal Finance Daily wherever you're listening to this to keep all of this going and really helps a lot, but for now let's get right to the bonus episode and Diana's commentary as we optimize our life. The Importance of Job Satisfaction in the Pursuit of Early Retirement by Craig Stevens of Retire BeforeDad.com.
Some people are driven to the idea of early retirement because they lack job satisfaction in their career. Working into their 60s isn't sustainable. Unhappiness at work comes in many forms. It could be a negative coworker that makes you dread going to the office, or the job pays a low salary with few opportunities to earn more.
Long commutes suck the life out of us too. Financial and securities at home can also contribute to unhappiness at work. Suffocating student loans or an unreasonable car payment can make you feel trapped because you need money to pay the bills. Maybe you support a family and leaving a job when there are a few opportunities in your town isn't an option.
I set my goal to retire completely by age 55 back when I was broke, unemployed, and living with my parents. There was no job to hate motivating me to retire early. My motivation was a positive one to work towards the goal of extended travel and retirement inspired by the freedom I experienced while backpacking the world. But after many years of working for the same company, my motivation changed.
I wasn't happy with my career or employer. I wanted to retire early because I didn't like my job, not because I was pursuing the goal of freedom and travel. That was an unhealthy state of mind. Today, I'm much happier with my career and employer and more grateful after experiencing a period of unemployment.
Being happy and enjoying the challenging work makes me excited to go to the office and earn a paycheck. I'm now working toward my ideal retirement again instead of trying to escape my career. Having gone through this cycle has taught me the importance of job satisfaction in pursuit of early retirement. What is job satisfaction?
The best definition of job satisfaction I've found is the simplest. The extent to which people like satisfaction, or dislike, dissatisfaction, their jobs. Some people truly love what they do for a living, unconvinced that is a small percentage of the working population. Most people find a career that best suits their skills and pays an acceptable amount for their time.
Work is what an exchange of time for money for many of us. Job satisfaction takes it to the next level. Does the work provide a reward besides the paycheck? Is the work meaningful?
Is the work appreciated by others? Parts of my old job were rewarding, but I was still unhappy. In hindsight, I realized that my job satisfaction decreased due to two primary factors, negative people and monotony. Like any toxic person you encounter anywhere, it's best to avoid them, but that wasn't always possible with my situation.
The other negative factor was the repetitive nature of my position. For eight years, I stayed in the same role with little exposure to new challenges. I was comfortable and content because the work was familiar and the pay was good, but there was a quiet angst attracting for my well-being. Not until I left that position that I mentally turned a corner.
Part of that unhappiness at work led to starting this blog because my job was not personally rewarding. The blog became a creative space for me to experiment with a topic that was more interesting to me than IT consulting. You've got a job, but you want a career. Those were the words of a jingle I remember from watching TV growing up.
It was for a local technical institute that promised prospective students the chance to leave their job for a rewarding career. I've had many jobs over the years. Lifeguard, Merrill Lynch Intern, used record store salesperson, paperboy, shoes salesman, beach umbrella attendant, busboy, proxy voting, cold collar, horrible, blogger, but only one career. Information technology or IT consultant.
When I interviewed for my first IT job at age 23, I didn't know what IT was. All I had was a finance degree and a disheartening internship experience. That first job became the foundation for a lifelong IT career even though I was solely focused on saving money to travel in my 20s. Most degrees and first jobs often dictate a life's work, but we make those choices at such a young age when we don't understand the adult workplace.
Jobs come and go. Switching careers is a big deal. They don't teach you that when you're choosing a major. More than a decade ago, I considered leaving my IT career to become a financial planner.
Personal finance was my passion, and we're supposed to follow our passion, right? I began pursuing the CFP certification. Around that time, I received a big raise for my job, and I used it to justify buying a condo. The raise confirmed the potential of my IT career, but the condo purchased cripples my cash flow and stifled my lifestyle flexibility.
My monthly housing cost went from $750 to $2,300. I accidentally enslaved myself. The mistake of buying a home when I couldn't afford it pressured me to abandon my aspirations of being a financial planner. That was bad for morale at work.
Job satisfaction and early retirement. During the years of being unhappy at work, Mrs. Retire before that would remind me that it was unhealthy to look for a new job just because I didn't like the current one. Don't leave your job because you don't like it.
Leave because you're excited about what's next. A similar saying is true for retirement. Don't retire from something. Retire to something.
Retire because you may have another 40 years to live. Retire because you can spend more time doing the things you love. Retire because slow travel is 10 times better than week-long vacations. Don't retire because you hate your job or career.
Unless you're within a year or two of your financial independence or retirement goal, being unhappy at work is detrimental to your well-being. Hating your job won't advance your ultimate objective of saving and investing more money. Hate may be the impetus to pursue early retirement, but it's the wrong vessel to get you there. Instead, find ways to be happier at work, relinquish your bad attitude, create new opportunities for yourself, gain a new skill, become better at what you do, build new relationships, to help avoid the toxic ones.
These actions will lead to more money. In the meantime, why not start a side business to empower the future you? Empowering yourself with additional income outside of a job can help improve your normal work life because it provides relief from 100% reliance on your job. And it could lead to something.
If all else fails, you can always pursue other employment opportunities. When you do, don't have to accept it. When the right opportunity comes your way, prepare as if your career depends on it. Change within a career is good.
The pursuit of better job satisfaction is aligned with the pursuit of earlier retirement. Job satisfaction leads to more daily fulfillment, a positive work ethic, happiness, and ultimately more money to fund your early retirement aspirations. Ideally, you want to build a career you enjoy so much that you don't want to leave. That way, when you reach the point where you can retire, you have two good options.
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One of the things I've realized in recent years is that the quality of my life is highly dependent on the people I surround myself with. And when it comes to the people we work with, we spend more time with them than we do with our friends and family. I think it's incredibly important to feel that the people I work with add value to my life, both personally and professionally, and vice versa. I saw a quote the other day that said, If you look at the people in your circle and you don't get inspired, then you don't have a circle, you have a cage.
I too hear that people are motivated to retire early to escape a job they hate, but I would caution that early retirement is not a destination that's immediately going to make you happy. I've heard it said by people who have retired early that if you're miserable before retirement, you will be miserable after. And the reason is that circumstances account for a pretty small portion of our overall happiness. I think it's important to evaluate, is it really the job or are we the source of our own on happiness?
Because if it's us, we're going to carry that with us, whether we find a new job or retire early. If it really is the job, you may already be in a financial position to leave, even if you aren't financially independent. One way to think about it is that once you're out of debt and you have a healthy emergency fund of say one to two years in cash, you essentially have a few money, meaning that you don't have to do what you don't want to do. If you really don't like that job, perhaps it's time to quit, live off your savings for a minute and decide your next move.
And that will do it for today, have a great day and start your weekend, thank you for listening, and I'll be back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.