According to the data in the book Happiness At Work, the average person spends roughly 90,000 hours being at work over their lifetime. That’s about one-third of our adult lives.
We spend most of our waking lives “at work.”
For many, this might be a sad state of reality. However, this can be viewed as a gift because it gives us ample opportunity to discover, explore, and share our unique gifts with others.
While we all have different standards as to what constitutes “work”, we all have the power to seize this opportunity in making our work meaningful by connecting with our highest personal values.
It starts by redefining work as a true act of service.
Essentially, service is any offering that empowers us to embody our fullest selves, while being wholly engaged in bringing value to others.
When work moves towards service, it becomes a form of spirituality. We show up authentically as the same person in our workday as in our personal lives and with the intention to add more value to others for the betterment of their life.
As Neale Donald Walsch frequently says:
“Your life is not about you but rather it’s about the lives of those you touch and that in which you touch it.”
When this happens our work (the act of serving others) and the essence of who we are will begin to merge. Our work and who we are become one.
This is the opposite of what we have been conditioned to believe about work: that our work life is separate from everything else.
The highest state we can strive for in our work and professional life is that those lines become blurred and there is no distinction between our “work” and our truest selves.
This is when we can describe our work as an enriching rewarding experience because now something we are offering that authentically aligns with who we are benefits other beings.
Does that mean every day no matter what we are doing we will be a bunch of bliss bunnies vibing high solving all the world’s problems? No, of course not, there will always be issues and setbacks we have to attend to and tasks that are monotonous and not much fun.
But we engage with it all fully and from a headspace of service whether we’re creating something by ourselves, meeting with a client or colleague, or simply writing an email.
When we work with this sense of authentic alignment and presence, even the most mundane and trivial tasks can become a beautiful sacred experience.
When you begin to embody your truest identities and align with your deepest personal values not only when you are away from work during your private moments but throughout all facets of your life the answers to these questions become clearer.
Walking the spiritual path?
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