The Experience Blog

A Labor of Love

BY JENNIFER BEYER

Build Your Village

How you approach your work and the people you collaborate with says a lot about your motivations. It tells others what you’re truly invested in and why you’re doing what you’re doing. When you slip into the role of “hero”, dedicated to saving the day, the intention can overshadow the goodness of your labor.

Playing the hero can come from a place of wanting to show your contributions, your self-worth to leadership; which is understandable but “don’t let your cape hit you in your face.”

Moving towards an outcomes-based work philosophy inclusive of the people around you is imperative for your contributions to truly resonate in a positive and meaningful way.

Before you begin a task, become conscious of the energy you want to put into it. Make what you do a labor of love, and your work will truly have an impact.

Key Elements Important for You on Your Journey:

  • Visualize and write down your thoughts to focus your energy.
  • The bigger the project, the more time you’ll want to spend developing your ideas and defining your objective approach.
  • Appreciate every part of your work and what you can learn from it, the good parts and the tough parts; because in the end, the village of people you’ve surrounded yourself with will remember the journey.
Tags:
Posted by experience

2 thoughts

  • I love this thought on labors of love in life. Without passion our work will never hit the mark and bring value over and above expectations. Exceeding expectations is a requirements in our hyper-connected, hyper-accelerated world. My only caveat would be that if you err on one side of loving your work vs your colleagues who go to battle with you, I always err on the side of people. Products, projects, reports and analysis can only go so far with out passionate people behind them. Like you said, going into ‘hero mode’ and trying to do it all alone is a short term solution that will never deliver in the long run. But respecting and caring about the people you work with can overcome many challenges and make work enjoyable no matter what that work is or what the obstacles you face when delivering it.

Comments are closed.