Are you getting bored at work? Do you miss the sense of growth and challenge you had when you first started in your position?
These surges of lethargy are completely understandable if you have been in the same role or industry for a long time. Your relationship with your work is analogous to your personal relationships. To keep the relationship exciting and stimulating, both require energy.
How can you rediscover your love for your job and your work? Lead with curiosity to reawaken your passions. Here are three questions to get you started on your journey to rediscovering love.
Question #1: What interested you about your role or industry in the first place?
We often get caught up in our routines and forget what initially drew us to our jobs. Make a list of the aspects of your role that initially piqued your interest. Highlight any issues you no longer have. Create an action plan to incorporate these areas back into your work if they bring you joy and excitement.
Question #2: Where can you become an expert in your field?
It’s easy to become complacent once you understand your responsibilities and how to effectively execute your projects. It takes time, effort, and concentration to become an expert. What else do you need to know about your job? Are there any courses that can help you learn more? Take this opportunity to celebrate your accomplishments, then consider what else you can learn to help you grow further.
Question #3: How does your role give you purpose?
It’s critical to understand how your responsibilities relate to your overall mission or purpose in every job you take. This exercise may appear to be easier for some roles than others. Consider the purpose of a teacher, for example. Their goal could be to improve future generations’ emotional well-being. What if your job entails delivering packages? Amazon does an excellent job of communicating the purpose of their employees from the time a package is ordered until it is delivered.
Whatever role you play, make sure you understand how your actions affect your final consumer and highlight each impact you make that energizes your passion and purpose.
How Collaboration Creates Competitive & Cohesive Teams
Last week, I spoke at the Human Resources Leader Conference in Las Vegas. These events were overflowing prior to Covid 19. People polled preferred live events because they provided opportunities for networking, professional development, and access to new tools and technologies in the exhibition hall.
When the organizers polled the attendees this week, the number one reason given was to connect with others.
Was this a result of quarantine and zoom fatigue? It turned out that the leaders wanted to collaborate with a diverse population. The goal was to work together.
Allegiant hired me when I was new to the airline industry. They were constantly expanding their fleet and bases, and my team needed to grow at a rapid pace. Rather than panicking, I relied on what I knew. I used my talent acquisition expertise to bring together a team from various industries, including hospitality, entertainment, engineering, and customer service. My boss referred to my team as “the island of misfit toys!”
I quickly grew the team from seven to seventeen members. We “misfits” from outside the industry learned from those who had been there before. However, the inverse was also true. People familiar with hospitality and customer service standards contributed their expertise to our talent acquisition strategy; engineering professionals provided industry insights to help us differentiate ourselves from competitors; and entertainment industry professionals provided process recommendations to improve our interview experience. As the company grew, it became more cohesive and competitive. Within a year, Allegiant went from having a low Glassdoor rating to being named one of the best places to interview.
Read more; 4 WAYS TO BE MINDFUL EVERY DAY
The challenges we faced, our diverse perspectives, and our ability to collaborate resulted in a winning team, or what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience as a “optimal experience.” As a group, we achieved flow.
How has collaboration enabled you and your teams to perform at their best? The difficulties will continue. Instead of having to figure out each answer on your own, work together to create. Your best solution could be just one strange idea away!
