Q: I’ve been at the same job for nearly 10 years. I dread going to work every morning. I need to do something – anything – else. The trouble is, I don’t know what else to do. Any suggestions? – Andrew

Dale: As I thought about your question, Andrew, the song “Conky Tonkin’,” by Jimmy Buffett, came to mind. It’s the story of a girl, bored with her life, encountering a guy in a convertible who says: “Hop inside, I’m headin’ south, take a ride. I’m just the next man that you’re gonna blame.” Don’t you love that last bit, about the next one you’re gonna blame? We don’t want that to be your new work, Andrew. Any career inevitably becomes routine and tedious. Or is it inevitable? Maybe not. There are people who’ve learned how to carry curiosity and excitement with them to the office.

Kate: Those are the people Dale has spent the past couple of years researching. I’m pleased to tell you that he has a new book about how to be one of them: “Better Than Perfect: How Gifted Bosses and Great Employees Lift the Performance of Those Around Them.” The reason it applies to you, Andrew, is that the opposite of boredom is being interested, and you get interested by being interesting.

Dale: Whenever you get a new job, you move up the learning curve until you get to where you do it perfectly. Then you have a choice: (a) You can let the tedium get to you and erode your work; (b) You can keep doing your job perfectly and get bored; or (c) You can learn to be better than perfect. It’s along the last of those three paths where possibilities open. No one offers an exciting new job to someone who dreads going to work. No one says, “You’re so bored, we need to reward you with a promotion.” Rather, when you move past your job description, you create an energy that people want to be part of – yourself included.

Kate: Along the way, you become clear about just what it is that pulls down your spirits. Most people are not disgruntled with their field, but with their environment. For example, many people come to us because they are attorneys and want out. On closer inspection, the problem isn’t the law, but where or how they are practicing it. Once they leave their law firm and go into a corporation or nonprofit, they find that they love law again.

Dale: You turn your work into a series of experiments, and then you follow the energy. As you do, you’ll find ways to do more of what you love.

– Kate Wendleton is the founder of The Five O’Clock Club, a career-counseling network. Dale Dauten is the founder of The Innovators’ Lab.