The Joy of Meaningful WorkWritten by Jan-Marie Dore
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All meaningful work shares following three common traits:It nurtures and empowers you. Meaningful work builds you up, sustains you, and helps you to learn and grow. Even most mundane and dreaded aspects, no matter how difficult, are very satisfying. If your work has meaning, it feels worth effort, and each night you go to bed glad that you did what you did that day.It matches your core values. Your deepest core values shape your perspective, guide your behavior, arouse your deepest emotions, and determine your choices. Work that has meaning connects you to things that are most important to you, to those values you hold in highest regard. If you feel that your work lacks meaning, it's almost certainly because it conflicts in some way with your values.It connects you with your passions and interests. You can't be successful if you don't have passion. If you don't have passion for what you do, do something else. Search to find happiness in your work life. If you are passionate about an area of interest, find out what makes you happy and consider pursuing it as a career. Find a niche where you can live your positive traits to fullest. You'll be much happier if you do.DOES YOUR WORK INSPIRE YOU? Clarifying your values will ultimately lead you to greater meaning in your work. To get a sense of how strong power of your own purpose is as it relates to work that you do, answer following questions:- How much do you enjoy what you do?- Does work you are doing inspire you?- Does your work feel like a calling and give you a sense of purpose? - Do even mundane details of what you do inspire you to be your best? - How excited are you to get to work in morning? - How accountable do you hold yourself to a deeply held set of core values? 5 WAYS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN Those in search of developing a better relationship to their work might take time to do following: - Clarify your core values and align your work with them.- Develop a philosophy, mission, and vision that guide your work life.- Reconnect to a sense of purpose about your work to give you a clear direction. - Determine what contribution you can make to society.- Bring mindful attention to your work every day.
Jan Marie Dore is a Professional Certified Coach who supports female executives and professionals in living a high quality, more fulfilling life - one that is meaningful, authentic, and a joy to wake up to every day. For free resources and programs on work-life balance and living your best life, visit www.janmariedore.com or sign up for monthly articles by sending an email to balance@janmariedore.com
| | Creating Sacred Space in Your Home, Office or GardenWritten by Jan Marie Dore
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to fit space, but to seek a way to occupy your office space in a way that harmonizes with your personality and energy. Also, it is important to see your work in greater context of world at large. You must know that your work can make a contribution to world and that your office space can reflect this intention. Bring to mind an image of your workspace. What do you see that stimulates your creativity and calls to your muse? Can you see cool green of trees and grass? Hear music or a fountain? Write or draw with a rainbow of colors? Feel warmth of polished wood? Smell fresh flowers from your garden? Is your office, cubicle or desk visually stimulating with lots of pictures, quotes and memorabilia? Or, do you prefer a clean, uncluttered space for working? Before you begin to implement any changes in your office, take a moment to still your mind and ask yourself: What is message that my office or work space currently communicates to myself and others? What is my long-term intention for myself and for others in work that I do? Think about what changes you can make to layout and design of your workspace to create an environment that inspires your best work, and what objects you will place in your ideal work space to give you a sense of sacred. Creating Sacred Space in Your Garden Understanding your garden as a sacred space helps focus both intentions and thoughts. Creating sacred space is a process. An entire garden can become a sacred space, or just an area in garden, so that upkeep is manageable and you have time to benefit from haven it offers. You can create a special corner of your garden with a bench for sitting, a small waterfall, or a living altar to Mother Earth, one that attracts birds and butterflies and other living creatures to your sacred space. Creating altars outdoors permits us to get back in touch with cycle and beauty of natural light that most of us - spending our days in offices, our nights in apartments and houses - no longer experience on a regular basis. Sacred objects can be arranged here on an altar - candles, stones, found objects from nature, statues or figurines, bowls, crystals, flowers, rocks, pebbles - whatever appeals to you. A fountain, bird feeder or a bench can be added. Even simple act of digging in earth seems to connect us to ancient rhythms of nature; scent, color and texture of soil combine to wake us up. The forms of life we discover in ground are a small epiphany of unseen web of nature. Bringing our spiritual life out of doors is a very humbling experience for it reminds us that each of us is only a very small part of natural world. To create sacred space in your garden, begin by really looking at your surroundings. What does natural landscape say to you? What is its spirit? Look at land, and pay attention to wind and sun: is there movement and light? Does landscape make you more aware? Listen to place: is it filled with natural sounds or is it still? Look and listen at different times of day and night to heighten your awareness of sacred space. Think about what objects will you bring into a special place in your garden to provide a haven of peaceful surroundings and remind you of larger context of your life.Special altars can be created in your garden for special occasions and to mark earth-honoring ceremonies from traditional calendar - summer and winter solstices, spring and fall equinoxes. For example, equinox - twice yearly moment when day and night are precisely same length - is a time of balance, so objects could be chosen to represents pairs of opposites - heavy and light, wet and dry, light and dark, etc. The solstices can be honored as times of transformation by aligning altar with sunrise so as to catch first ray of light. Written prayers or intentions can be burned to signify transformation and release of old.Creating a sacred space represents your conscious intention to make time for both needs and goals of spirit. The very act of creating a physical place that represents what is sacred to you makes you spiritually receptive and helps you stay connected to something larger than yourself.
Jan Marie Dore is a Professional Certified Coach who supports female executives and professionals in living a high quality, more fulfilling life - one that is meaningful, authentic, and a joy to wake up to every day. For free resources and programs on work-life balance and living your best life, visit www.janmariedore.com or sign up for monthly articles by sending an email to balance@janmariedore.com
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