Coaching, Leadership, Modern Career
Can I have it all? by Sudi Chakraborty
A satisfying career and healthy relationships and if you’re married, a strong marriage, if you’re a parent, strong kids. Did this question ever cross your mind? It did to me and changed my whole life. I found my answer and that is: Yes, you can have it all in life and believe me when I say that, but it has to be the right kind of all the kind you are looking for. You can’t have every possible opportunity or attain some culturally enforced ideal. But you can have everything that you value and everything you long for as long as you invest your energy and time to learn the right technique. This was profound for me. I had never actually realized and defined what “all” I really wanted. I had made list upon list of goals I wanted to achieve in life (a highly reputable position with an International organization, 3 bedroom house, a Tesla and make even more money every year), but I’d never defined what I wanted my life to actually look like. You might be struggling with whether to stay home with your kids or go back to work. You might know what you want to do but not be sure how to make that change. You might not know what you’re really good at but know it’s not what you’re doing now. What risks should you take? What makes you happy? What gets in the way of your happiness? Don’t you think it’s about time to find out?
Find the purpose of your life.
Have you ever questioned your mind what is the purpose of your existence? Many of us work just for that rectangular shaped bill at the end of the month, which we call a paycheck. Employees who see that their work has a direct and significant impact on the world around them are more likely to tackle that work with passion; they aren’t just in it for the paycheck. Once I asked 55 years old janitor while using a rest room in a hospital, what her purpose was. She may have said that it is to empty wastebaskets and mop the floors. She may not feel very inspired or passionate about those tasks. But she answered it with so much dignity and pride that she feels her purpose is to create a safe and inviting environment that will help put patients and their families at ease, thus inculcating greater reliance in the organization. Being aware of that greater sense of purpose connects that employee’s personal value of caring for others with the job before her of mopping the floors. No longer is she just pushing a mop around, she’s helping to care for every patient that comes through the doors.
Clearly define our own personal values and stick to it.
Developing the level of engagement and commitment to a greater purpose is an individual choice and an individual journey. Nobody can force you to be engaged in your work; however, the right kind of guidance from a coach or mentor can help you discover your purpose by showing you how your work makes a difference in the greater scheme of things. Connecting to a greater purpose begins with having a clear definition of your own personal values. All you need is to be encouraged to reflect on what values you regard as your highest priorities and key drivers.
Sounds philosophical, isn’t it? But these values naturally impact every area of our life, including our work life. Once you have reflected on and articulated your own values, determine how they fit with the organization’s mission, vision, and values. Then examine how the organization’s mission, vision, and values are infused into your own job description. If your organization is committed to providing the best in healthcare to your patients, how does your job description support that goal? Helping yourself and your co-workers see the connections between personal values and organizational values will help foster a deeper engagement and sense of purpose.
Be passionate about the work you are doing.
There is nothing worse than having to wake up every morning during the week to mindlessly go do work you don’t even care about. However, this is never really an issue when you are passionate about the work you do. If you are not forced to work somewhere because of monetary constraint, you truly enjoy what you do and you never really work a day in your life. As I was once told in one of my career coaching sessions “having a sense of purpose is not a part of job descriptions as one of the “meets expectations” criteria. It is your own journey”. All you need is to igniting a sense of purpose and passion within you and keep fueling it up. In no time you will reap benefits, as you link our values to your work, you will be rewarded with a greater sense of purpose about the work that runs much deeper than your next paycheck.
You can relate more to the work and come up with better ideas.
Being forced to do work is one of the most draining experiences. While there are days at every job where you may feel the work is dull and draining but you have to realize that not every day is going to be an enjoyable one. There are highs and lows, but when you are passionate about the work, you look past the challenging days. Don’t value money over your overall health and your passion, if you do so, you will find yourself in an endless cycle of misery. Work no longer becomes a career or a journey, but more of a taxing nuisance on your mind and body that has to get done. Every day that you go to work with this mindset you begin to hate your job more and more. While many people feel that they must work hard to retire and have money to enjoy themselves, what’s the point of enjoying yourself in your later years when you spent your life being miserable?
No obstacle will stop you from achieving success.
When you really enjoy what you do, nothing will stop you from getting your work done. Because you are passionate about what you do, you feel unstoppable and nothing can obstruct you from achieving greatness. Your passion ignites your work, and like a rocket, it accelerates you past road-blocks that may come about. Any obstacle that comes your way is accepted and fought off with a creative solution.
Make yourself lucky rather than waiting to get lucky.
It is very easy to play victim and complain about things, which we are not born with. There is nothing, which we put efforts to and cannot achieve it. Even a failure indicates that we tried and learned what does not work. Most of us spend a majority of our life working by spending a good portion of our lives working in order to make ends meet. We need to understand that there is no way around this, so we might as well accept the cards we are dealt. We need to continuously work on ourselves, developing skill sets, gaining experiences and get our hands greasy if we want things to work for us. Jump into the battlefield and come out like a Gladiator. It needs not hours but years of practice and dedication to master a skill and if you are passionate about something, the most important thing you need is patience to learn and practice.
Your best reward is when you finally make it.
There are very few feelings better than achieving a goal you set out for yourself. Nothing like striking off your bucket list of goals you set out for yourself to achieve. It takes a lot of strength to stand up for yourself and decide to spend hours in coaching, training and educating yourself to become the master of your own life and to follow your passion ruthlessly to achieve your goals. When you finally reach the pinnacle, it is that much more enjoyable knowing you got there doing something you love. Remember work doesn’t have to be something that you hate doing, stay true to yourself and always do what makes you happy.
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