Joy inWork- It begins with Purpose
Day 13. #pilgrimagetojoy
You don’t find your purpose, you build it.
John Coleman, Harvard Business Review
Work is one of those areas where people experience great joy or are seeking more joy or are questioning joy altogether. We wonder if this is where we are best suited to be. Or, we wonder if our gifts are being best used, or if our gifts are being used at all. We wonder if we find just the right job, our lives will be so drastically different and it will be pure joy to go to work and will end any frustration or unfulfillment.
I wonder if we actually need to shift our perspective. What if we were to create joy in our work? Not wait for it to appear or be revealed. No matter what work we do.
I read in a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review, that having purpose in our work can make all the difference. Purpose? ‘Most of us feel we’ve never found it, we’ve lost it or in some way falling short.’ (Harvard Business Review). But the upshot of the article was that there is no magic purpose we will discover under the proverbial rock. Rather we need to be intentional about creating the purpose and creating the joy in our work.
The next few days I’d like to look at the common misconceptions about finding our purpose….beginning with:
- “Purpose is only a thing you find.”
Actually, almost any work can possess remarkable purpose. We just need to infuse it with purpose. We need to give it meaning. And in doing so we may discover new joy.
