“It’s about feeling good about what you do. Loving it. And sharing that with the world.”
^My friend Toby dropped this one on a group call. Almost sounds clichéd (sorry Toby!) but it’s not what it seems.
Each person in the group was sharing some insights on their previous month or two of work…
Challenges, wins (finally getting the new website up), things they learned.
Toby started speaking. And Toby is a wordsmith. When he speaks, it’s almost like he’s practiced it before. He also is great at building his business.
He casually talked about some things happening in his business, and then dropped the three sentences up top.
“It’s about feeling good about what you do.”
“Loving it.”
“And sharing that with the world.”
I scribbled it down in my notebook. I knew I’d want to come back to this.
We hear this stuff all the time.
Which, usually means sometimes we speed over it. So, let’s flesh out the nuance here…
Because there’s a secret.
“Feeling good about what you do,” or “loving” what you do, isn’t about darting around to find something that feels better.
A new job isn’t necessarily the answer.
For sure there’s a threshold on this, but rather than changing tasks, what if we can perspective. Bringing passion to what you are working on in the moment is a choice.
Passion is a practice.
And, when you transmit passion, or positive energy for the work that you do, more opportunities will come your way, and there will be more chances that you’ll love
Here’s the thing. If you can’t cultivate passion for the thing that you’re doing right now, finding something new likely isn’t going to be the answer. Conversely, when you can get behind the work that you have in front of you, we feel it.
We feel the energy.
Attitude is a practice,
Passion is a practice,
Generating Energy is a practice (or practices…)
So, what’s the trick? How does Toby love what he does, even if it’s some nuts and bolts task?
Here’s the practice:
- Write out the set of circumstances you need, in order to feel GREAT! What conditions need to be met for you to be on fire? (Foods, sleep, coffee etc…)
- How did these conditions come to be? When did you decide this (OK, here comes the practice…)
- Can you figure out a way to make this set of conditions happen more regularly?
- Or, can you decide to expand that set of conditions or circumstances (maybe to include what you are doing? Now?)
When you see someone who loves their work, there’s a slim chance they’ve found the one-in-a-million perfect thing for them. Far more likely though is they’ve got something close, and then figured out the practice of passion. On average, they’ve learned to cultivate a positive perspective, which helps them to feel good.
Once we figure out the practice, the last part of “sharing it with the world” becomes pretty easy. When you’re excited by what you’re doing, it makes a lot more sense to tell people about it!
