Recently, I was watching an old classic- P.S. I love you! written & directed by- Richard LaGravenese. Now, this is a movie I have watched several times in the past, but every time I watch it, I feel equally touched & overwhelmed. It is a movie about Love and how the Protagonist tries to move on in life after her life partner passes away. The movie is about intense love where the husband even after dying doesn’t leave his wife alone. On the contrary, he helps her move on. This true love & intention from a deceased life partner then causes epiphanies for her to discover what she loves to do and reinvent a life of purpose, meaning & happiness.
Love, the most powerful emotion if transcribed in any aspect of life can create Miracles. The movie didn’t end after it was over, not in my head at least. It got me thinking and some questions surfaced in my mind:
- How many of us love the careers that we are in?
- Do we love what we do or do what we love?
- Or are we merely getting by?
I thought that this being the Valentine’s week, with love being in the air, let’s talk about the love that we feel towards our professions. There are many definitions of ‘Love’ and more often than not it is used to describe the emotion felt by us towards someone or something. When it comes to a career, we tend to use different adjectives like satisfactory, successful, promising, etc. haven’t heard many people talking about loving their professions.
There is a quote by the famous Chinese teacher and philosopher Kong Qui (popularly known as Confucius):
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
What Kong Qui was trying to tell us way back in 500 BC was that feeling the emotions of love and passion for our career/ job is paramount to our professional success.
Why?
Because, the moment you stop considering work as a stressful activity and start enjoying it, your performance and output automatically surpasses excellence.
I once knew a VP-Operations working with a private bank. We would meet often through common friends and every time our conversations would hover around how he loved what he was doing which included every small aspect of his job. As it turned out, his bosses were happy with his performance and his growth knew no bounds. Today, he heads the Asia-Pacific region for a multi-national financial services organization.
The point that I am trying to make here is really simple. Love is undeniably the strongest positive emotion known to man. It brings out the best in us; be it in our behavior or our mental approach to situations. We spend more than 35 years of our lives and at least 10 hours a day working professionally. That, I need not mention, is a lot of time. And, most of us go through our respective careers mechanically, sans emotions, certainly not love.
Since I started working with professionals I realized that the concept of loving their jobs/career was alien to them. While they had heard about a utopian professional who loved his job and lived the proverbial happily ever after life, they truly believed that it was all, well, utopian. While many such professionals merely wanted a resume re-written, a brief discussion about what they love doing highlighted the fact that they were miles away from a career path that could evoke love & passion towards their jobs. And then we wonder- why me? Why am I not happy or successful? Why am I not enjoying going to my office every day? Well, it is true- you can earn, while doing what you love and enjoy doing! What you love to do doesn’t only have to be for a vacation, it can also be your vocation.
At Change Ur Story, we ask you the right questions, encourage you to think about your passion and help you follow your heart. On the other hand, we also empower you to develop love for your current career path by removing some obvious doubts & barriers in your mind.
In other words, we believe that you either do what you love, or learn to love what you do! It’s your career and life and you deserve the best! As Career Coaches, we understand and appreciate the importance of loving your career and striving to be the utopian professional that you heard about, such that you give yourself the life you deserve! And yes, it’s possible!
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