What is your work?
In this month of Labor Day where we honor workers and their contribution, I want to bring focus to our work. I wonder: what do you think is your work?
My belief is that work includes anything that one pursues outside of leisure time activities, not just work inside businesses or to earn a paycheck. This could include work inside the home, work outside the home, volunteer activities, creative and artistic endeavors, and more.
In fact, if one looks up the definition of work, there is little relationship to a single type of work:
activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result
a task or tasks to be undertaken; something a person or thing has to do
something done or made
Why do I think it’s important to consider one’s work? Because I believe in Jonathan’s Haidt’s conclusions in his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, in which he talks about finding “purpose within life.” He concludes with saying that we can help create conditions for our happiness and that one component is “striving to get the right relationship… between yourself and your work” (along with the right relationship with yourself and others and with something larger than yourself). Our work matters for our happiness.
But perhaps our work isn’t as narrowly defined as society wants us to think. Many of us are seeking meaningful, purposeful work today. And, many of us put a lot of stock in our identities centered around our professional lives. Maybe we can find more joy when we acknowledge, embrace, and celebrate all aspects of the work in our lives.
So, if you were to view work more broadly, how might you think about your work?
What is your life’s work?
What is your professional work?
What is your personal work?
What is your work today?
What is your work this year?
What work lights you up?
What work is meaningful to you?
What work has your attention now?
What work needs your attention now?
What work aligns with your values?
My hope is that you will acknowledge yourself this month for all the work you do in your life.
And perhaps this will help unlock a way to think about your ambitions more broadly beyond just being about professional work. What if you were to give yourself permission to broaden your lens of work and, therefore, acceptable ambitions and to claim those? What might your relationship with your work look like then?
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