Hi everyone,

It’s Sunday evening and perhaps not co-incidentally a friend recently complained to me about “Monday blues” – it’s a fairly common malaise, in fact, a lot of people I meet don’t seem to really enjoy their jobs at all and sometimes it seems they live weekend to weekend. I think that’s a crying shame, especially considering how much time we all spend at work. Think about it – most people sleep around 8 hours a day, probably spend 2-3 hours on mealtimes, getting dressed etc., and pretty much the rest either at work or getting to and from it. If those 9-12 hours are hours of discontent – that’s an absolute waste of life force IMHO.

It does not have to be that way. No, I am not talking about quitting jobs to become a beach bum and running away from it all. I am talking about changing the approach to work. For me a big part of having a heart at work is having fun – if I am going to spend 50-60 hours a week doing something, I sure as hell want to enjoy it! And a big part of having fun is not what the actual work it, but how you go about it. E.g. say you have to wash the dishes (and don’t have a dishwasher) – most people don’t like washing dishes but it does have to be done (at least occasionally, if you’re half-way hygienic). You can approach washing dishes grumpily, whinge the whole time and generally be miserable before you do it because you’re dreading doing it, while you do it since you hate it, you may feel sorry for your self the whole time, and after you do it, because “it’s not fair”, you’d rather have done something else… Here’s the thing – if it’s got to be done, doesn’t it make more sense to make it fun? How??? Well for one, only wash the dishes when you’re actually washing them (not before & after). You could put on some music or the radio, play with the suds, get a friend round & have a chat, think about how nice and clean they will be when they are done and so on.

What does washing dishes have to  do with having a heart at work or having fun? Like I said, it’s they way you approach it. I remember some time ago in the middle of summer, there was a database infrastructure outage on a major system I was responsible for. Now even though neither I nor my team had anything to do with the actual database infrastructure nor even had access to it, it affected our system so we did have to clean up the mess, which meant a certain amount of manual data entry & checking work – i.e. 12 hours. The day of the big summer office party. That we’d all been looking forward to for ages. With free cocktails. The most amazing thing about that day was that not a single person actually complained at all! Everyone just got on with it, had a whole lot of fun, we ordered pizzas and just got on with what needed doing with a lot of banter and humour. Several hours later in the early hours of the morning we all finally  went home, feeling good about having done a great job.

If you don’t necessarily love your job but need to pay the bills, you could focus on how/why you don’t like it OR you can make it fun. Maybe you like your colleagues, or your office space or the coffee or the view from the window, or that it pays well or that most of the time you do actually enjoy it or that they bring in the beer trolley on Friday afternoons or you get along well with a couple of great people. Focus on what’s good and enjoyable about it and you’ll be surprised at how quickly your experience will flip around. And there’s nothing “wrong” with being in a job that’s not your dream job while you’re figuring out what you want, or because it’s the best option you see available at present. Remember even Einstein was a Patents clerk while he was figuring out E=MC2!

Of course if you do want to switch to doing something fulfilling, it’s important to make sure your heart is in it. I mean your heart – not your Dads or Mums or partners. Too many times, people think they are following their heart but are confused because they’ve allowed people they care about to decide what’s important for them.

So how can you tell if your heart is in something? Does it make you come alive? Do you feel yourself light up when you think about it? Do you feel excited and happy imagining what it would be like? Is it FUN? Do you lose track of time when you do it? If you cannot think of anything that makes you feel alive and happy when you do it, I suggest you get a coach to help you and also check out my blog on clarity on this site.

A third thought about having a heart at work – it’s important to be real and all of you.  A lot of people edit who they are because they think it’s not appropriate for the workplace. I’m not talking about wearing jeans to work, I’m talking about leaving your funny bone at home. The only thing with doing that is that it’s hard to connect with people when you do that because people can usually sense it when authenticity is missing, although they may not be able to put a finger on it. Also, when you leave a part of yourself out a lot (like 60 hours a week), you may forget you had that part eventually, which is a shame. It’s possible to wear pinstripes and personality at the same time and in fact, people who do make the workplace more fun so express yourself!

As promised, I’d like to invite all my blog subscribers to attend my new 3-part Teleseminar Series on 3 topics critical for success:

• How to be confident & charismatic in any situation including 3 tips for total calm, the Body of confidence & Charisma – how to get it
  
• Negotiation 101 – the art of getting what you want including the one thing you must NEVER do, 2 golden rules for mealtime negotiations & how to make everyone win
• 5 things you must do to position yourself for success including 3 keys to getting promoted, & how to look the part
  

The 1st one is on Tuesday 24th August, the 2nd one is on August 31st and the final one is on September 7th all at 9 – 10 p.m. UK time

Sign up at http://changetosucceed.com/11.html

This is only open to people who are subscribed to my blog! Sign up if you haven’t already.

Happy Monday and see you next time.

Piya

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