What does Work Mean to you?

What do you want from your work or your job?

Do I like a boss or colleagues who tell me what to do continually?

In the last couple of years, social media has been replete with people complaining about the drudgery of jobs.

On the other hand, are all those mentors, gurus, trainers and coaches (I include myself in this fraternity) who are endlessly offering freedom for a price.

Even in a hybrid working model, long and tiresome hours at our desk with no camaraderie and office small talk to break the routine. .

Freedom from the monotony of a 9 to 5 job and an exhausting commute.

Before getting into this mental mould, there are 3 questions you can ask yourself to get clarity?

1. Do I want to keep learning new things all the time? Do I like to solve new problems?

Or am I more comfortable doing the same kind of things over and over, so that they become automatic?

2. What kind of people do I want to work and collaborate with to solve problems?

Or do I perfer to be challenged and stretched beyond my comfort zone?
Am I open to feedback and coaching? Do I have the agility to look for new solutions to new problems?

3. Who are the people I would like to serve? Do I have ethical preferences of the type of industry in which I work?

Am I passionate about the problems my company is solving?

Or is my work just a job to be done from 9 to 5, irrespective of what need it meets, or what difference it makes to the community and the world at large?

Once we have some clarity in the above questions, it’s a good time to evaluate where we we are on the spectrum on the above of the above  metrics.

This can give us clarity as well as save some unnecessary angst personally.

It will be a personal dilemma not a herd mentality that drives our decisions about our work and career.

Do this exercise and share your insights in the comments.

Happy Working!