Don't
like your job? Transform it using the magic of purpose.
The results of a remarkable experiment demonstrate the power you hold to
completely transform your job. The experiment is believed to have taken place
during the Great Depression when many were unemployed, destitute, and
purposeless. [Please forgive me if some of the details are wrong. I couldn't
find the source of this story.]
As I understand the experiment, the U.S. Army employed two groups of
previously unemployed men. The first group was taken out into the desert to dig
holes. They worked very hard all day in the scorching sun, and every day was the
same: Go to a new location in the desert, dig holes, and return exhausted.
Amazingly, and in spite of the back-breaking work in the desert heat, the
more they dug, the happier they got. They had a purpose even though they didn't
know why they were digging the holes.
The second group of men had a different job. Every day they would go to a
different location in the desert to fill holes. They didn't know about the first
group of men. All they knew about their job was that they were being paid to
fill holes. Like the first group, they labored all day in the hot desert. This
went on day after day.
At the end of each day they were exhausted but satisfied.
Lo and behold, they became happier too.
This hole digging and hole filling went on for some time and both groups of
men had become significantly happier than before they started their work: They
were productive and had found a purpose. Now watch carefully what happened next,
because the experiment wasn't over...
One day the foreman of each group went to the men to tell them about the
other group of men and what they did. When the men realized there was no real
purpose to the jobs they were doing, they were devastated. Their purpose was
destroyed. None-the-less, the experiment continued. For every single man without
exception, the hole digging and hole filling was sheer misery. Both groups of
men were extremely unhappy. Even though the pay and the work was exactly the
same as it was before, they were miserable. Nothing had changed, except their
sense of purpose was absent.
This experiment reveals a great insight. If we can find genuine purpose we
can gain tremendous job satisfaction. But any type of purpose won't do. You have
to know how to create the right kind of purpose. Let's see how...
Purpose is determined in two ways. Sometimes a purpose is seemingly delivered
to us by others, like our bosses. As employees we typically adopt the purpose
our company needs. Those who are self-employed adopt the purpose of their
clients. The second way purpose is determined is that you look beyond the
immediate task to see its higher, more noble meaning. So rather than simply
accepting your assigned tasks and adopting the task as your purpose, introduce
an extra step of finding the higher purpose in your task. You'll still do the
same task in the same way physically, but now you'll add the magic of a higher
purpose.
Here are some examples. Say you're a locksmith and your task is to install a
lock on someone's front door. If you only adopt the purpose of installing a lock
successfully, you might be happy or miserable; gratified, or not, by your work.
Instead, of accepting the lock installation as your purpose, look for the real
significance of your task. Your purpose isn't really to install a lock, is it?
That's just the task. Your purpose is to protect a family from criminals. You
are a protector. Someone who saves people from violence, burglary, and even
murder. As you install the lock, treat each step as if you will be stopping a
murderer next week. Make it even more personal by imagining that you are
stopping a murderer whose next victim would have been someone you love. Every
step of the installation becomes like a karate block to thwart a thug. You are a
hero, a savior.
Or perhaps you work in an office and must prepare a report for your boss. If
all you see in the task is that you must create a report, you won't have much
fun. Ask yourself, "What's the higher purpose of this report?" Maybe your
company is a pharmaceutical company and the report will permit your boss to
ensure that new drug research is funded. That humble reporting task is about to
save a lives. What if it were your child's life, or your spouse's life, or your
parent's life. As you begin pulling the data together for your report, keep your
higher purpose in mind. Treat every detail as if one person would die if you got
it wrong. Make it your highest work. Five years from now, compare the difference
between these two outcomes.
The research funding was approved and your parent's
life was saved. Or, your non-recognition of the higher purpose led to sloppiness
that lost the funding and you caused your own child's death.
Or, maybe you work in a factory packaging food. You feel your job is
monotonous. Would it be so monotonous if you mentally followed the food you're
packaging? Imagine it leaving the plant in a truck, arriving at a market,
getting purchased, and then getting cooked and eaten by a family. Maybe that
food is part of the only meal they'll get that day. Or maybe it's for your
family a week from now. Your purpose isn't really to put food in a package...is
it? Isn't the higher purpose to take away the pain of hunger? You are giving the
kindness of pain relief to another. Never mind what your co-workers or society
thinks of your job. Every morsel of food you treat with care and protect from
spoiling is a noble, if not sacred act of kindness. It is a gift.
Purpose is something you choose to apply to the tasks you do. You can be
hero, a person of nobility, or a savior, even in tasks that others consider
humble. One way of finding a higher purpose in your tasks is to think
altruistically. For example, picking fruit may seem like hard physical labor.
Yet if you treat each piece of fruit as a gift from nature (or God) that is
going to remove someone's hunger, the act of picking fruit becomes an almost
holy task, an act of removing hunger. Likewise, mopping the floor or washing
clothes can be transformed from a chore to a gift of cleanliness for your
family, the same family you care for dearly.
The true value of each task gives
us purpose, a reason for caring about the quality of the outcome.
If you are a spiritual person, higher purpose may be readily discovered
according to your beliefs. Take purposeful action according to your faith. Your
actions become a form of worship or communion in perfect alignment with your
ideals and the Universe. Ask yourself how you can best help others. By thinking
in terms of the good you can do, and reinforcing that to yourself as you work,
your purpose brings peacefulness, good will, and satisfaction.
Without such purpose, all you have are miserable, lowly, repetitive,
unrewarding tasks. With purpose, you lead a high and noble life that is filled
with meaning and purpose and value. Remember how miserable the men in the desert
became without purpose?
Had each one adopted the personal purpose of communing
with the land, the soil, and nature, and had they taken interest in the rocks
and things within the soil, they would have enjoyed every strike of the shovel.
You can do the same with your job. (Source:
www.trans4mind.com)
Right
here. Right now. This is the
place.
www.houseofbeesting.com
www.lulu.com/spotlight/bebap
www.prosperity-thru-wellness.com
www.wellness-thru-prosperity.com
http://www.wellness-thru-prosperity.com/store/za/default.aspx
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