Thank God It's Monday®! Blog

No Matter Where You Go… There You Are.

 

I read a quote recently. It said: “People think it is about finding a job they love. It’s not. It’s about loving the job you have.”

Yes, It’s about loving the job that you have.

You know what, you probably have a great job.

I guarantee you, while not perfect, you have some teammates who are pretty good human beings. And there’s probably one or two things about your supervisor that are probably pretty cool. And your CEO may not be perfect but probably has many good qualities. And your clients, oh my goodness, you get to make a difference in their lives!

It’s just not that bad.

The problem with switching jobs is everywhere you go there you are.

If you don’t like this job, statistically, it’s been proven that if you don’t like this job, you won’t like the next one… the one after that… and the one after that.

It is a skill set to decide to love your job, and it requires two things.

Number one, you get good at it, which means education never ends. Be a voracious leader and a learner to make sure that you understand things in the best possible way.

Number two, make a decision to be fantastic at what you do and to bring joy to what you do every day. It is a decision. Happiness is a decision.

The Dalai Lama said it best: “Happiness is a decision.” When you look at that decision, you’ll live a life that is happy.

So… stop looking for a new job to make you happy.

Start loving the job you have.

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We Are Either Doing THIS or THAT All the Time

 

Maya Angelou said: “They will never remember what you told them or what you did. But they will always remember how you made them feel.”

Every moment, we have a chance to have encounters with our clients, with our co-workers, with their children in a way that makes them feel better about themselves.

How we feel about ourselves impacts how we make others feel about themselves.

How we bring joy into the room matters because we’re either breathing life into life or sucking it out. We are never a neutral event.

We have a choice. We can make sure other people feel better because we choose to bring joy to the conversation, talking about possibilities as opposed to what’s wrong, moving things through quickly, and celebrating the successes along the way.

Listen, it’s easy to find things that are wrong. I’m very capable of doing it.

I am not talking from the mountain here as someone who is capable of always being in this place, but I do know that my life goes better and that I make other people’s lives better when I sincerely make an attempt to breathe life into life, to bring joy in my heart, and to make sure that I’m thinking about bringing joy into their heart at the same time.

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Kindergarten Wisdom for the Ages

 

Always Add to the Situation to Make Things Better

If you’ve never read Robert Fulghum’s book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, it’s worth a read.

I had the great honor of being in the green room and going out for dinner before a speech with Robert Fulghum, right when his book was a bestseller for many years in a row. And what he wrote in the book was all about the principles of the things that we learned back in kindergarten!

Things like being nice to each other. Choose your words carefully. Always add to the situation to make things better.

Simple things that we knew back then, but simple things that are easy to forget.

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Assume you are part of the problem

Whenever there’s a problem, don’t we always assume somebody else created the problem? I know I can be inclined to do that. My husband and I joke about it all the time.

We call it the “toilet paper syndrome” since the one time he asked me: “What percentage of the time do you think you change the toilet paper roll?” I said: “Well, quite frankly, about 75% of the time.” He said, “Well, that’s fascinating because I think I’m changing it 75% of the time, and that math doesn’t add up.” We had a good laugh realizing that it’s very easy to blame the other person.

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“What does ‘done’ really look like?”

 

Before you start the next project, think about the conditions of satisfaction.

What does that mean? That means that whoever it was that gave you a project probably has some idea about what they want to have done with it; they have an outcome in mind.

They also know what procedures have been followed in the past.

They know where things can go wrong, what you should be managing around, when this thing is due, and what “done” looks like.

By getting the conditions of satisfaction before starting a project, your likelihood of having to do it only once AND having somebody give you a high-five at the end goes up substantially.

Sadly, here’s how it works for most people:

  1. They hear there’s something to be done
  2. They start running wildly toward that direction, not understanding…
    1. the when
    2. the how
    3. the goal, what the outcome is supposed to look like

And then, when they deliver something to their boss—or worse yet, have it sitting on their desk or in a folder on their computer, that is NOT a recipe for getting things done.

When we don’t find out the conditions of satisfaction first and then come back afterward and ask, “Did this meet the conditions of satisfaction?” What we’re doing is creating chaos in the workplace.

Listen, nobody needs to be working nights and weekends doing rework—not you and especially not your boss, because if they keep having to do your work over again, likely that does not bode well for your career. So, every time you’re given instructions about what to do, first just stop.

Ask a lot of questions to get the conditions of satisfaction before moving ahead.

But move quickly once you have them and bring it back and ask if the work you’ve done meets the conditions of satisfaction.

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