TGIF! (3)

Thank God it’s Friday! (3)

Welcome to March!

 

How was today? I want to believe that Monday has become just like Friday now. Knowing all we have discussed so far, your life at work should make greater sense and have deeper meaning.

Last week we explored what work is not. We examined the seven myths about work and I believe they have removed the scales in your eyes and stirred a desire in you to find out what work really is. If you have been following this series, you will find out that these are foundational insights that many people are ignorant about; and if the foundation is weak, what can someone with sincere intentions and motives do? Absolutely nothing. Such a person is often sincerely ineffective; and maybe sincerely unproductive. The foundation is the beginning and determiner of the future. Whatever will be great tomorrow must be got right in the foundational stages.

Let us explore the seven truths about work; I am sure you will find this insightful.

Work is a mission. You are on a mission to fulfill a preset objective. Your mission is what you live for; and what you are ready to die for. What work is to your essence for living is what breath is to your being alive. Work is your opportunity to carry out your mission on earth. If you can’t die for your work you are probably not working. Anything that you can’t put your life on the line for cannot be certified as work.

Work is an instruction. You have an instruction from your creator to work. You inherited this instruction from the first man that ever lived. This instruction makes work an instinctive part of us. We are naturally wired to know that work is a part of our lives.

Work is a lifestyle. Your lifestyle is made up of those things you do without thinking of them or planning to do. They define others’ perception of you. Work defines the perception of others about us. The greatest men that are lived are primarily known for their works. They went about their work on a daily basis without thinking about whether it needed to be done or not. For the most successful people in every field of endeavour, work is a habit. It is a part and parcel of their lifestyle.

Work is a means of adding value to humanity. Your life summary will consist in what you have done for and given to humanity not how much you ate, drank, wore or amassed. Work gives us the opportunity to add value to others in little or big ways. Whatever your work looks like, in it is a purpose bigger than the tasks you do. A man who works as a vulcanizer for example, fulfils a greater purpose than his task of pumping air into flat tyres. He helps someone to be more efficient in his own work, saves the person a lot of time that he would have put into pumping the tyre with his mouth, helps the person stay unruffled in appearance and importantly saves one or more lives from accident. Your work carries within it greater meaning than can be found in the ordinary day-to-day tasks.

Work is an avenue for expressing your gifts, abilities and talents. Each one of us is loaded down with gifts and talents that can benefit others and make us fulfilled. It is an opportunity for you and I to express those abilities, gifts and talents we possess when we are at work. Look at it this way: You are a steward entrusted with gifts, abilities and talents that ought to be presented to the owner with profits upon His return. Every time you utilize those gifting in you, you refine them, thus causing an increase in value. If you appraise yourself now, how would you rate the value of your gifts, talents and abilities? How much is the world willing to pay to have you do what you know how to do best?

Work is a refinery. At work, we get refined from the raw that we are into a state that is purer, more valuable, and more appealing. Work will subject you to high levels of pressure and heat in a bid to purify you for greater levels of effectiveness and value. If you are the type that keeps complaining when you are mounted with pressure at work, then you are refusing the refining experience or work which happens in the workplace. What gets better or looks better remaining in the same spot? Absolutely nothing! Stagnancy is the profit of refusing refining.

Work is a school. At work, you engage tasks that show your capacity rating and mastery level. If you fail at a given task, your capacity rating for that is low and you have not yet mastered that task and its demands. That is what school does to us. School shows us what we previously were ignorant about and then examines our level of understanding and mastery of those insights. Our promotion is dependent on how we perform. Those who cheat their way through school are doing their selves great injustice because they will never be able to come to true and realistic appraisals of their capacity rating. Those who seek promotion with less than the required capacity rating are asking invariably to be broken down by responsibilities that are too much for them to handle. Ultimately, the organisation suffers, other team members are demoralized and they lose their footing and reputation, if they ever had any.

If you approach work exactly as it truly is, you will make the most of your life at work. Work is so much fun when you are on the right page. Work becomes more objective when you understand it properly; and that understanding helps you to be maximally effective as a superb worker. Find out more about this in my audio titles, Developing Superb Work Habits and Make Everyday Friday.

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