Why do you do what you do? For a living? What is your purpose in the career you have chosen? Is it for the money primarily? Many men might say that. Is it because you love to help people? Or it allows you to be super creative? Maybe you get to work with people all day long on teams so it feeds that love. Have you ever thought about the WHY? Identifying what is important might be a good place to look. There is motivation for what we put it to our choices, all of our choices. We spend much of our day at work, much of our week. What motivates us to be there day after day?
My youngest daughter is a high level athlete. She is part of an online community of gymnasts that work on the “mental game.” In this week’s session this was their question…Why do you do this sport? What is your motivation? She replied “To Go to World’s”… others had to do with the fun of the sport, the camaraderie of being on a team. The coach really didn’t accept my daughter’s answer…saying it was the end game. But what is the thing, day-to-day that keeps you in it, loving it? She really didn’t know. She kept coming back to the same answer as we were sitting there talking about it. It was a good question on the part of the coach. It seems there has to be more to the motivation than one huge goal. Day after day of 3 hour practices… year after year… for the possibility of competing at the highest level?
I know I do what I do because I want to help people. It’s that simple. I want to impact people in a positive way so that they can feel good and in part, effect others, and so on and so on. I understand that my choice to be in my career is motivated by this desire and drive. It is important for me to remind myself of this on some days… this is part of my purpose in life as well. So why do you do what you do? Is your career or line of work in keeping with how you want to be living?
