Here’s a question that can lead you to joy at work: Who am I becoming?
You can build your resume, chase possessions, and court the approval of others. They’re all failed long-term strategies for joy at work.
But this question – this one is a winner. Why? Because at the end of the day, the best thing you get from your life is who you’ve become. And since you spend so much of your life at work, that means the best thing you get from your work is also the person you become.
You’ll be more sharp-elbowed or more generous. More cranky or more kind. More superficial or more substantive. More neurotically worried about what others think or more at peace in your own skin.
Everyone gets shaped into a particular kind of person. Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa all did. You will, too. In fact, it’s happening right now.
When you organize your life around the question, “Who am I becoming?” you’ll start to realize something wonderful and a little humbling. You are a contribution. Yes, you. You are a contribution. At work. At home. In your community.
Your work is a laboratory for your soul. That realization will lift you beyond chasing resumes and possessions and the approval of others to pursuing something more like the best version of yourself. And that, my friend, is something we’re all dying to see.
