Do great work – love what you do

When Mondays roll around, we often here this “M word” as if it were the plague. Enjoying a weekend away from work to play, relax, and do more of what we love, makes getting back on the grind all the more difficult. Often times away from the work world means catching up on all of the things that work took us away from.

So what is your relationship to work? Is it something you do merely for income? Does it fulfill your creativity? Or does it provide more drama, and drain you of your energy rather than fill you up? Is work your life? Does work provide a healthy atmosphere to strengthen your gifts? Does work deprive you of family, friends, and an outside life? Does work allow you to provide a deeper purpose for yourself, while also helping others?

Again, these are only a few questions that represent what work is to so many people. When you approached the “work inventory” section of the initial article on relationships, how did your relationship score? Remember a scoring of a low number indicated a weak relationship, and a high scoring indicated a strong relationship.

So whether or not you work from home as a stay at home parent, are in school pursuing your future career, are in the field of your dreams climbing the corporate ladder, building your own business, have been in the same career for countless years, or are retired from work, etc, everyone can benefit from a healthy relationship with their current “work.”

Often times we get stuck in the day to day agenda of our work schedule, and forget what made us truly love our job. We forget to see our connection to the bigger whole of helping others. We forget that we are providing a service to help others. If there wasn’t a demand for your service, you wouldn’t have a job to supply. This relationship relies on servicing others.

For those pursuing their career path in school, find a way to pursue what you absolutely love. Along the way you will have plenty of opportunities to work in positions that aren’t your ideal career, and thus will show you what loving your actual career feels like once you get there. It won’t feel as much like work if you truly love it.

Are you a career hopper? Do you bounce from one career to the next,
(not due to being fired) but solely trying to find what fits you best? Again, finding something that strengthens your skills and provides a healthy relationship is better than settling for something that scores you the lowest number on the relationship scale (remember we often spend more time with our careers than anything else).

Yes, there will be bad days at work. Days that will make you second guess your decision in the field. But, that is life, and that feeling won’t last forever. On days such as this, leave this bad day at work, and don’t let it follow you home. That day is done, and tomorrow is a new day. Don’t let that bad day greet your family, as they may have had an amazing day.

Simply show up, and do your best everyday. If it is not the ideal job at the moment, find all of the little things that you do enjoy and add those up. Sometimes doing the “dirty” work to the best of your ability, will provide a bountiful supply of work that you will one day love.

I will leave you with a quote by Steve Jobs from his Stanford commencement speech from June, 2005:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Have the best FUEL-filled day ever!

Megan Church
CEO of MangoFuel LLC
mangofuel.co
mangofuel3@gmail.com
765-620-9227