Your life is too short. One day you’ll wake up and you’ll look back on the past 10 years of your life and you’ll have one of two responses.
The one that I wish for you is…
I am one lucky person who gets to wake up and do work that I love.
Or
I am one sad mofo who shouldn’t be doing what I do every day.
If you are in the first group then I’m happy for you. I’m here to tell you that you are very lucky indeed. You’ve found a way to wake up, work hard and go to sleep happy.
- In 2017 the State of the Global Workplace report by The Gallup polling organization reported that 15% of employees worldwide are engaged in their job, while 67% are not engaged, and 18% are actively disengaged. That means 85% of employees worldwide are not engaged or actively disengaged.
For the other 85% of you that are not happy. You have to figure things out for yourself. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to wake up energized, ready to do work that you love.
Digging
You must start by consistently digging into your thoughts and emotions. This could take a day, a week or even a few years. Time is not the issue. It doesn’t matter if you are 29, 49, or 69. You have an opportunity to make changes that help you feel more connected to your life’s work.
It took me fifteen years to figure out my path and I’m still adjusting as I go. It’s not about finding the perfect thing. It’s about working on your mindset, so you are flexible enough to keep finding ways to grow. It starts with consistently digging into your thoughts and emotions each day. Making time to understand yourself so you can be more authentic at work and at home. Peeling away those layers so you build confidence.
This is a journey that many people are afraid of. They don’t want to peel away their armor because of the pain that they’ll uncover. It’s raw under our armor. We have festering wounds that need our attention and love. If we aren’t willing to put in this work we allow our fears to dictate our actions. When this happens we make choices out of fear instead of love.
We choose a job because it pays well. This has to stop! We must must have a balance of love and pay.
I get it. I worked for a bank for seven years because I chose fear. I eventually got laid off and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It forced me to process my fears and step out the other side a better man.
Choose Passion
I’m not perfect. I still choose fear at times and the stories that I tell myself to justify my decisions are just protecting my ego. When I stop trying to protect my ego and choose from a place of love. I live more authentically and so can you.
You must have a daily process to help you peel away these stories and expose them to your conscious brain. When you do this you put yourself back in the captain’s seat. You decide where you want to go with your career based on the work that you love doing. I’m not advocating that you quit your job today. I still work at a day job and I love it, but I know it’s not my mission. My mission is to help people create space to slow down, so that they can process their thoughts and emotions which will allow them to choose work that they love.
We live in a fast paced world. If all we do is hop from fast track to fast track each day, we’ll wonder where the time went and why we wasted it on things that didn’t matter. We must choose work that we love and it starts with creating a passion project that you can work on for just 5% of your day. Just give yourself 5% of your day to do work that you love and I’ll show you how you can turn that 5% into 25% into 75% of your day doing work you love. It’s not only energizing, but it helps you love longer. It does require courage, but it’s better than staying afraid.
You can download the Rate Your Day Routine mini-guide that I used to help me build confidence to do the work I love. Do this every single day for 30 days and let me know how it helps. I'm rooting for you.
Research: State of The Global Workplace Hardcover, by Gallup polling organization. ISBN-10 : 159562208X. ISBN-13 : 978-1595622082 (1)
Image courtesy of Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels
