Success & Happiness are the two major goals in life. Our career coaching professionals will tell you that to achieve these goals, you must live these principles each and every day (they are not negotiable)! If any one of these principles is lacking or seriously absent, you will not be a “happy camper” and sooner or later your performance will be compromised and suffer.
#1 Love What You Do
Love what you do (or at least like what you do a lot), that is, the very functions of your work. If you are an elementary school teacher, then you best enjoy teaching basic education to children and tending to the children’s needs. If you run a retail store in the mall, then you must enjoy engaging with customers, being in a fast-paced job. If you are a civil engineer, then you should enjoy using sophisticated equipment and spending a great deal of time outdoors. If you are an underwriter at a bank, then you must enjoy living in a cubicle and crunching data to evaluate a prospective client’s worthiness for the loan, and having little interpersonal contact. So, whatever the basic, everyday functions are that you have to do, you should enjoy them.
#2 Get Along With and Respect the Folks You Work With
Get Along with and be in sync with your colleagues/co-workers as you spend more time with them than you do your family, friends and dog! If you do not share the same values, ideas and are not in agreement with each other, it makes for a long day. And that means you have to put out a great deal more energy just to get along. It’s easier to work with people where your values, beliefs, standards and behavior are compatible! In our personal lives, we generally do not socialize with people we do not like or have little in common. In our job, we do not always have the choice of who is on our team or who we engage with on a regular basis.
#3 Believe in Your Company and Its Mission
You must believe in the company’s vision and its products/services. It’s hard to show up at a company day in and day out and reflect the company’s products/services if you don’t trust the leadership or value the culture or their products/services. If that’s the case then career change counseling may be in order. It’s not enough to just show up every day for the benefits and paycheck.
We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery. —H.G. Wells