ARE YOU IN LOVE WITH YOUR CRAFT| CELEBRATING VALENTINES|

Today is Valentine’s Day and while we celebrate our loved ones, who are our life breath; let’s also celebrate our craft which gives us unconditional love, inner meaning, and support in our life journey every day.

The biggest bliss we experience in our life is with our craft! More than 70% of our life is spent on our work-craft -job-art-sports or things we do for a LIVING -LOVING-LEARNING-LAUGHING…Flow state is an outcome of being in love, and not sweat and toil!! If you look at the top 3 percent in any successful professions, they are in a zone of excellence because of love for what they do. The best and happiest artists -dancer-programmer -teacher -singer -author- chef -sports person -actor, leader, …are not lucky they are just in obsessive love with what they do. They re-invent their ways to create by spending long hours with their craft. Sometimes it yields the best of returns and sometimes it doesn’t, yet it’s never a loss being in this relationship as it takes us to new peaks of our life experience. Your work never lets you down when your commitment is strong. This relationship does go through highs and lows, however, you can always define your sweet spot with your love!! There is always a way to celebrate your craft if you are willing to revisit your methodology.

Finding our vocational valentine necessitates strong inner introspection and is a strong reason for what the divine has carved us out for. Sometimes it’s intuitive and sometimes it needs many experiments before we find our true love!! Once we find it, it is sheer joy, as it is effortless to get into a zone, feeling of being on a pedestal, blissful experience, and feel the high. However, like any other relationship, this also can start feeling mundane, monotonous, or taken for granted …unless you believe in the LOVE and the joy of celebrating the same consciously!!!

Can you remember your first few months in your new role, it was full of learning, meeting new people, and achieving great things (not far from the first few months of a new relationship!!). Then one day it begins to get boring, every day seems the same and you’ve lost all motivation for the work-job-craft!! However, if you have the desire to rekindle this love for your craft -work-job, you can take a step forward.

6 Ways to celebrate your work as your Valentine :

1. Flashback -Once you look back at yesteryears of all the accomplishments, recognitions, and milestones that you have experienced in your work…your valentine seems very worthy of all the accolades. It could be your client call, team success, program design, great appraisal conversations, great sales pitch, … all can seduce you back into the obsessive love you feel for your work!! Going back to basics is sometimes the best solution!
2. Try a New GPS – Every work needs creativity and innovation in the way you exhibit the best possibilities. So trying new methods in your craft is something that keeps it innovative and exciting.
3. Express Yourself – Often we expect our loved ones to have an intuitive understanding of us…which may not fructify into ideal results. Likewise, if something is bothering you about your work it’s time to express and discuss. It could be an expectation from colleagues or even yourself. Time to settle scores by communicating. Magical changes happen when we take the initiative to work things out. Being open to conversations -interactions -suggestions can also be a part of this expression.
4. Inner Meditative Dialogue -Sometimes going within also reveals the best we can do with our craft. In today’s world, we overemphasize external locus of control -external feedback, society, etc more than our inner needs. Thus an inner dialogue can help you understand what’s next to be explored in your domain or craft.
5. Reworking the lows – Every love relationship has some highs and lows. Thus working on the lows is also a part of keeping the relationship alive and exciting. Making changes to feel the best in your relationship with your craft is something that can reveal new dimensions you are yet to explore. Could it be as simple as changing your surroundings? It’s easy for things to become mundane after some time so change it up! Sit at a new desk, ask a different colleague out to lunch, or create a new workday plan.
6. Growth with Gratitude -Gratitude for our skills -talents -powers in our craft is something that we can practice every day. This also helps us grow our current capabilities and nurture prospects.

It is Valentine’s day, remember you wouldn’t stay in a relationship if you weren’t happy…And our Work should be the same! Being in love with our WORK can be one of the best therapies of life!!