Passion Does not Exist in the Job, It Exists in Us
This post originally appear at J.D. Meier’s Sources of Insight blog. He granted me permission to republish it here and I have also embedded the video by Srikumar Rao on Mental Chatter, Mental Models, and Me-Centered Universe. I encourage you to access the fabulous resources and writing by J. D. Meier at his Sources of Insight Site!
I have developer’s disease.
I love to sit at a drafting table and draw plans
for hotels, wrestling with problems of traffic and the flow of people.
That’s what turns me on. ~ Steve Wynn
Don’t put your passion on a pedestal. Your ideal job is not “out there” somewhere, just waiting for you to come along and find it. You can grow your passion for your job right under your feet. … But what if you don’t feel passionate about anything? … Or what if you don’t feel passion for the job you’ve got … is there something you can do?
Srikumar Rao offers some powerful advice you can use to transform your job in his Leading@Google talk on Mental Chatter, Mental Models, and Me-Centered Universe.
What Passion in Your Job Feels Like. What’s it like to have a job that lights your fire? Your heart sings and your mind soars. Srikumar describes it like this: “You get up in the morning and your blood is singing at the thought of being who you are and doing what you do, that as you go through the day, there are several moments when you come intensely alive, that you’re completely, completely absorbed in what you’re doing, that you feel that, YES you are doing exactly what it is that you were put on the Earth to do, and just vibrantly, radiantly alive.”
Your Ideal Job is Not “Out There” The mistake we make is thinking that our ideal job is out there somewhere, and all we have to do is go find it. Srikumar says: “The mistake that most of us make is the same one: We think our ideal job is out there, and we have to find it. And if we can find it, life will be great. We define our ideal job in terms of a bunch of parameters: Here’s how much it pays, here’s the type of person my boss is, here’s how big my office is, here’s how deep the carpeting is, and here’s how much I travel … and once I can find that, then I’ll be passionate about my job. You might have 10 or you might have 15, but you have a bunch of parameters, but once I can find that, I’ll be passionate about my job. … Wrong!”
Ignite the Passion Inside You, Right Where You Are If you don’t find the passion inside you, then you’ll never find it. Srikumar says: “First of all, that exact concatenation of circumstances does not exist, and, if it did exist and you were plugged into it, it probably would not take more than six months before you were the same sorry, miserable self there as you were where you are because one of the things that we have to realize that we don’t is … passion does not exist in the job, it exists in us. And either we find it in us, right where we are, or we will never find it. And the best thing is you can ignite it insight right where you are. And the beautiful thing is that if you ignite the passion inside you right where you are, the external world has a marvelous, mysterious, miraculous way of re-arranging itself to suit the new person you are becoming.”
Pick a Project and Transform Your Job You can transform your job, right from where you are. Srikumar shares three steps to transforming your job:
- Get out of the space from which you are observing. Take a notebook along with you at all times and systematically note the things that are pretty good about your job. The act of doing this moves you to a different space.
- Pick something significant. Pick any one of these things that you came up with that is important to you and significant for the company. For example, if you like working with a particular customer, you can challenge yourself with, how do you get more customers like that, or how do you transform your relationships with all your customers to be like that.
- Make it a one month project. Simply come up with a one month project where you are going to increase that one component. Every day do one thing. Do something every day, ideally in the morning.
You can change your focus each month to another aspect that you enjoy. If you don’t make the progress you expect in the month, then give yourself more time. Unless, the excuse is you didn’t do anything during the month toward your project. Then there is no excuse. But if you did a little something toward your project each day, then simply give yourself more time.
Remember Two Things Whenever You Get Frustrated. Whenever you get frustrated, angry, or disappointed, there are two things that are always true:
- You’re focused on what’s wrong, instead of what’s right. Srikumar says, “First, you’re concentrating exclusively on the two, three, or four things that are wrong with your job … more precisely the two, three, or four things that YOU think are wrong with your job, and completely ignoring the 30, 40, or 50 things that are actually pretty good about it.”
- You’re living squarely in a “Me-Centered” universe. Srikumar says,“It’s extraordinarily difficult to live any kind of fulfilled life if you’re living in a me-centered Universe. It just doesn’t happen.” And you know you’re living in a “Me-Centered” Universe, if your mental chatter goes something like this, “Poor me, poor me … I’m so bright, so talented — why do I not get promoted instead of that turkey in the next cubicle who is a Cretan but somehow or other he sucks up to bosses and therefore he’s got promoted … now how caustically unfair life is … poor me, poor me.”
You’ll find that simply spending more time in what you enjoy will transform you, your job, and your world around you.
Click here if you would like to watch the video on YouTube.
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David Zinger experiences tremendous passion for employee engagement. David works with organizations and individuals to improve employee engagement. His speaking, writing, coaching, and consulting focus on helping organizations and individuals increase employee engagement by 20%. David founded the 3720 member Employee Engagement Network. The network is striving to increase employee engagement 20% by 2020.
Contact David today to increase engagement where you work. (Email: dzinger@shaw.ca / Phone 204 254 2130 / Website: www.davidzinger.com)
