• Embrace the Work Itself

  Filed under Shift Perspective
  Jan 13

  Audio:  Embrace the Work Itself [Time - 4:08, File Size - 3.8 MB]

  Projects are the most goal-oriented of human endeavors. And if you spend most of your life working on projects, as so many of our project team members do, you can develop an uneasy, ever-present sense that you are never really finished. There’s a continual nagging feeling that you’ve not completed your work because the next goal is endlessly popping up in front of you, demanding your attention.

  So where’s the joy in the work itself? What about the intrinsic value of our chosen profession? The beauty and fascination of the field itself? What about the practice of our profession?

  Consider this from George Leonard’s Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment (my  bold added for emphasis):

  “Goals and contingencies… are important. But they exist in the future and the past, beyond the pale of the sensory realm. Practice, the path of mastery, exists only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring…”

  Greer’s Challenges…

  Reflections

  Reflect on these questions:

  • What’s so great about your chosen profession? Why did you choose it?
  • What is it about the “doing” of your work that brings you joy?

  Team Challenges

  Ask your team:

  • What attracted you to your profession? Why did you choose it?
  • What fascinates, satisfies, fulfills you about the work itself?
  • When you “lose track of time” and disappear into your work, what tasks are you performing?

  Project Manager Challenges

  • Observe your project team members and try to see what’s going on when they are “flowing” or completely engaged in their work.
  • Find the quiet joy that keeps them going. Let yourself be amazed at their inspirations.
  • Honestly express your appreciation so they know that you know they are doing wonderful things.

  Learn More…

  • Go to PhilosophersNotes and get the full notes and MP3 on Mastery by George Leonard.
  • Check out George Leonard’s Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment on Amazon:

  Tagged as: Add new tag, burn out, enthusiasm, here and now, present moment
  
  No Comments

Leave a Reply