Here is today’s Game and what’s going on.
This is what I learned from Dave Hollis‘ book, Get Out of Your Own Way.
Today’s highlights and declaration come from the book’s first chapter, titled “Lie #1: My Work is Who I Am.” Let’s jump in:
- You can be a good man regardless of where you work, but where you work and what you do does not in and of itself make you a good man. You can provide for your family in ways that make sense to you, but as you find ways professionally to provide, becoming more successful doesn’t mean you’re justified in doing less at home as husband and father. You can earn respect regardless of job title, and sometimes, it turns out, by abandoning that identity. It’s on you, not your employer, to push you into places that help you grow. You am deserving of love regardless of what your business card says. You are enough before the commute begins.
- Until you’re able to better understand why you do the things you do, it’s more likely that unconscious habits will kick in when life sneaks up around the corner and kicks you in the shin.
- You are responsible for finding fulfillment in your job, for being happy with what you do, for knowing your value regardless of title, the company you work for, the salary you make, or the way anyone looks at all of it.
- You and you alone have to feel the call on your heart to grow and pursue a life that’s better than the one you already have, even as it means shedding the identity you’ve become comfortable with in the office. If you can’t let go of that identity you’ve allowed to become intertwined with your job in order to chase true happiness and fulfillment, if you don’t take responsibility for yourself and the significant steps needed to get there, you’ll likely stay stuck. And it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to cling to a false identity and sacrifice the more your life could be. Pray for the wisdom to understand your potential, and for the strength, will, and drive to do the work required to bring those gifts to the world in a way that disconnects your job title from your ability to deliver impact.
THINGS THAT CAN HELP YOU
- Redefine how you measure success in your work. Impact matters. Waking up on fire for the work matters. Feeling alive and whole while doing the work matters. Providing for your family can happen either way: in places where you aren’t challenged or fueled and in places where it feels like a calling with maximum opportunity to use your gifts for others. Choosing to focus on the latter has made all the difference.
- Accept responsibility for your career growth. Until you take full responsibility for the work that only you can do to push yourself, you will not see your skills tested in new, less comfortable ways that produce the growth you are missing.
- Worry first about your reputation as a human in the workplace.
You are defined by your impact.
Impact is agnostic to job title. Impact can come irrespective of the name of your company. There’s freedom in untangling what you do from who you are. Once you know your “why,” you can find fulfillment in being challenged to chase it, no matter what your business card says.
