How to Enjoy Your Working Life

Do you enjoy the work you do each day? How do you define work? You can look at it as your job, or you can define it more broadly.

Definitions for work according to the Oxford Dictionary include:

1. activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
2. a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do.

How Do You Define Work?

Which definition do you prefer? I prefer the first. I do not want work I HAVE to do. I prefer doing work I enjoy. I do not want to see my work as just a job.

There is a big difference between having to and wanting to. A simple change in attitude towards work can change the way you see it.

When I was young, I remember the drudgery of working as a laborer. I was fortunate to discover the secret of seeing work differently. The secret was simple.

The Secret

The secret is just one word: Attitude!

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” – Brian Tracy

It made all the difference when I discovered how I looked at my work was up to me, not to someone else. Changing how I viewed my job changed my life and set me on a course to building a successful career. Rather than seeing work as drudgery, I began to see each day as an opportunity to learn and grow.

This shift in attitude changed my entire life. I started climbing the ladder of success, ultimately spending a good part of my career in high-level executive positions in multibillion-dollar enterprises.

Make the New Attitude Stick

How do you see work? Do you see it as mundane, monotonous, filled with toil and drudgery? It will be each of those things so long as you see it that way.

Ask yourself this simple question: “What can I learn from my work?”

“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” – Mark Twain

How are you carrying work in your life? If you continue carrying it incorrectly, it will remain unpleasant. If you think you can’t think differently, you won’t.

When you change how you see work, it will change. If you believe you can change your attitude, you can!

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” – Henry Ford

Change your words from could have, might have, should have, to can have, will have, did have.

“The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” – Louis E. Boone

Change from hating your work to appreciating it. Choose to see it differently.

“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.” – Kahlil Gibran

If you don’t like the work you do, you are a free person living in a free country, not a victim of oppression in a communist country or a dictatorship. You are free so long as you choose to be free.

“If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree.” – Jim Rohn

Move your life ahead full steam. Find what you love. Find what inspires you. Even if it means staying where you are, you can find it there if you want!

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.” – Johnny Carson

Heed these words from a wise man.

“The law of work seems unfair, but nothing can change it; the more enjoyment you get out of your work, the more money you will make.” – Mark Twain

I challenge you with this final quote from a survivor of the horrors of the Holocaust.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor E. Frankl

Take charge of your life. Adopt the attitude that you love the work you do, and your life will change before your very eyes!

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