Before you get bogged down in valentines and galantines and whatever pleasures of February might hold (as in the Superbowl), don’t forge the almost prosaic love of good old fashioned work. Work gets a bad rep, but think about it: Work offers you monetary reward. Work slices through a boring week with new challenges. Work stretches the mind and muscles to excellence.
Not many people these days expect to actually enjoy their work. For many, work is a necessary evil. Sometimes we need to reset our core values to reflect old fashioned ideals, and learning to loving work is a learned behavior.
Achievers demonstrate several unifying characteristics, and none of them are inherent in our species. They are cultivated. That means the capacity to love and thrive in your work is available to every single one of us. Simply saying, Love your work proves simplistic and lacks the means for actual change. Instead, focus on these core values:
- Give your integrity a boost by finding one way to improve your work each day. The definition of integrity including doing your best especially when no one is around to see it. Lip service and the extra mile really aren’t that far apart. As a merchandiser, you know you should clean shelves before restocking them. Do you approach this with haste, giving each shelf a scant dusting? Improve your work by elevating your daily practice. You might broaden and organize your tool kit by adding paper towels and Windex to remove rather than scatter dust. When you take greater pride in a job well done, you build up that elusive love of work.
- Be a beacon of kindness. All too often our world feels punctuated by rude behavior. Road rage and terse, surly remarks demonstrate just how far our society has strayed from a gentler time when we treated everyone with consideration. As a merchandiser, you may be mistaken as an store employee and shoppers may ask you for assistance. Smile as you respond. Speak with courtesy. Use two sentences instead of two words to convey your apologies. Point shoppers in the right direction for receiving help. Those endorphins that kick in when you smile and treat others with courtesy also give you a jolt of pleasure. You will enjoy your work just a little more.
- Commit yourself. Somewhere our culture strayed into strange waters. We feel committed when we say, Yes I will do it rather than when we put forth the time and effort to actually do it. Commitment never rests in empty words, but rather, evidences itself in action. As a merchandiser, pencil into your calendar the time or order of your route when you accept your schedule.Refra in from accepting other invitations. Schedule other demands as they arise around your work schedule.
Some many kinds of love. We love football, of course. We love chocolate. Who doesn’t? We love hanging out with friends. Beware of languishing in trivia. Transcend shallow likes and preferences by intentionally choosing to deep dive into what our work requires. It may or not seem appreciated, but you…YOU enjoy the satisfaction of setting your own high standards and without deviation, devoting yourself to them. Let love spill off the page and past the margins you once set as life’s parameters and learn to love what you do.
