Why Love Belongs In The Workplace

When we look for wellbeing, resilience and performance in the workplace, many of us are missing the key ingredient: love.

Love is not a fluffy romantic emotion that has no place in the workplace.

Loving our work is not a luxury, only reserved for a few lucky ones.

It’s for us all. We absolutely can and should seek to love what we do. Because when we love what we do, we experience much greater wellness at work, we unlock greater levels of resilience and we perform better too.

Signs that you love what you do:

You’ll experience things like:

• Inspiration, joy, gratitude and excitement
• A genuine care and desire to do your best
• States of flow that have you working for hours without realising the time has passed
• Heightened creativity and ideas coupled with the desire and energy to implement them
• Deep commitment to your work, your craft and your contribution
• A desire to go above and beyond, to serve your clients and colleagues
• High levels of resilience where no challenge is insurmountable
• A willingness to try to new things, to take risks and break out of your comfort zone
• Feelings of fulfilment, engagement, gratitude and… well… LOVE!

That doesn’t mean you don’t struggle sometimes, have low days, hard times and some tasks you don’t enjoy – that’s normal.

But when your foundation is love, that love will help you to get through all of that.

If you don’t have that love, those things will break you easily. And that’s what leads to poor performance, disengagement, stress, resentment and mental and physical illness. It’s a downward spiral for sure.

It’s a conscious choice to love what you do and ensure your staff do too

I’ve always loved what I do. From my early days working in project and programme management and the world of lean and continuous improvement, through to management consulting for public sector organisations in the UK and Australia, and to the work I do now – resilience and wellbeing training and speaking. I have always LOVED what I do.

Am I just lucky?

No!

I CHOSE IT.

I choose work that lights up my heart.

I choose to do what I love.

I choose to do things that inspire me, excite me, enthuse me.

It’s non negotiable.

I don’t settle or give up – it took me TWO YEARS to get my first dream job with a company called Unipart. TWO YEARS! Holy moly, it wasn’t straight forward at all. Back in those days getting a job in lean and continuous improvement as a graduate with no experience was near impossible. It was a tough ride, but I kept seeking, kept applying, kept dreaming and I got there in the end. And it was SO worth it!

And being an entrepreneur is hardly easy either. It’s another ‘holy moly’ for sure! Many ‘holy moly”s in fact, every day!😂

But I know myself, I know who I am and I know what I love. So I must do it.

I don’t argue for my limitations – although let’s be real here, they plague me all the time. But I continue to pivot and focus on what I love. Because, love is my superpower. And so I choose it, and I use it.

Like I said, I’m not lucky. I just made a choice. I chose love. And you can too.

I hope that gives you something to think about. Because life is too short to not love what you do!

Speak again soon,

With LOVE!

Pinky

Source: (1) 10. Why Love Belongs In The Workplace | LinkedIn