Winning Without Work
Wow. I just finished the last couple of blog entries in what seemed like just a few minutes. Time flies when you're having fun. I'd just got off a call with my team who'd read the previous blog, and were really excited about the next ones. I just kept thinking about the difference it would make, how well it would be received, and how proud I'd be that they were available to them.
What's interesting, is that the one I wrote a couple entries ago, wasn't so much fun. It wasn't that I liked the topic any less, or that it was harder to write. I did the same things. Thought of the key message I wanted to deliver, created an outline, looked at where in my life I could relate to it from, and started writing.
What was different was the context I was holding. Context is this all pervasive part of what it is to being human. We don't just see life as it is (although we often think we do), we see it through a lens of our experience and our state of mind. That's why two people can look at the same thing and interpret it in two completely different ways. The example I use is a straight up-and-down line on a page. It's a line, a one, the letter i or just an example. Depends on the context. Ok, enough concepts, how do I use this?
Well, contexts don't have to be accidental, you can create them. By default, we create a context based on how we feel about the situation we're in, and whether it seems dangerous to us at all. The problem is that if we look for how any situation could be dangerous, we're likely to find something. We'll look for danger, and find it. That will reinforce our context that the situation is dangerous, and we'll keep looking for danger. We work ourselves into a tizzy.
When I was writing that earlier blog entry, I was worried whether people would understand me. Danger - I may look bad or fail at making a difference. My context was something like "Can I do this?". Not a lot of fun. So creating that entry was filled with hard work and effort.
For these last two entries, I held a context of "I make a difference". Creating them involved all the same mechanics, but no "work" was done. It was just fun, and as a result, time flew. That's the simple power of context.
Incidentally, both contexts which I created for those, were by accident (ie. based on the situation). I didn't create the powerful context of "I make a difference". Someone shared with me that I did - so I got lucky. Where this idea of context really has a use is all those areas of our lives in which we are suffering, and in which we are still participating.
Let's use the example that you don't like your job. It's probably not a lot of fun to go into work each day. So, you busily go about finding another job, but until that happens, you still need to pay your bills. So, you trudge into work. Your context is something like, "I guess I haf-to". Blah. That's hard work.
Shifting your context to something like "I'll master doing my best work", will have you a lot more jazzed about going to work until that next job switch. You take on a challenge like that - doing your best when you don't even like the environment - and it seems like the work becomes worthwhile again. Ok, maybe that context doesn't work for you, but I'm sure you can find one which does. That little shift could turn all that hard work into fun and play and end your needing to "work" at all.
Whatever those areas are for you, go out and create a new context. You may be surprised how fun that former "work" turns out to be.