In honor of Labor Day, which is tomorrow, I thought I would tell you a little about my work history. Most of you don’t know this about me, but for my first job I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. Mainly because it was a sew-sew job, de-pleating and de-pressing.
Then, I took a job as an upholsterer, but I never recovered. Next I tried working in a car muffler factory, but that was exhausting. Finally, the most successful job I had was selling origami, but the business folded.
Steve Jobs was quoted as stating the following about work:
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.”
Do you love your job? DID you love your job? If you are like many people in our country you may not have loved your job, but you loved the stability that you were able to have while you worked. And of course, like me, many of you have had many jobs, or even careers. Gone are the days when people worked for one company all of their lives. Gone is that level of factory loyalty, mostly because many of the factories don’t last all of our working life. But just because the factory folds, or the school shuts down, is there ever a reason to do less than your best?
Students across the world are encouraged to do their best work, every day. Slogans such as “Be the best version of yourself”, “Bring your A GAME”, and ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST are hung in classrooms across the planet.
If the role of a school is to prepare students to be good citizens of the country, and to be successful in their adult lives, are we dropping the ball on doing our best once we graduate from high school? Performers are instructed to do their best, because you never know who is in attendance. You never know who is watching you. Athletes are trained to do their best. What about the rest of us? Does it really matter if we do our best?
Some might view doing your best as an indication of your ability to follow the rules and honor your supervisor. I will do my best so that I can keep my job, keep my supervisor happy, and pay my bills. But perhaps there is a larger piece to the notion of doing your best.
Do Your Best is one of the four agreements created by Don Miguel Ruiz. I have talked about this book and the four agreements before, but in honor of labor day, I want to talk about this agreement again.
Ruiz writes: “Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.
Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.”
Ruiz goes on to explain that when what you’re doing is less than what you’re capable of doing—not what you SHOULD be doing – but what your Highest Self knows you’re capable of—there’s a gap. And, in that gap is where depression and anxiety and disillusionment hang out.
When we close that gap by doing our best, there’s no room for the negative self-doubt and depression to take over our feelings. As a result we end up happier and feeling better about life.
What we are talking about here is work ethic and the impact it has on our soul. Some of us boomers might be tempted to say that it seems to us that some of the younger generations don’t always have the same work ethic that we do. Those generations above us probably said the same thing about us.
Wikepedia describes work ethic in the following way:
“Work ethic is a belief that work, hard work and diligence has a moral benefit and an inherent ability to strengthen character.”
Why is it important to have a good work ethic? Why is it important to do your best work? I think it comes down to your own integrity and self-image. Your viewed reliability and track record in relationships beyond the work world also matter. Are you someone who can be counted on? Are you someone who will do good work? Let’s take just a few minutes and talk about what keeps us from doing our best:
1. Lack of experience
There is certainly a learning curve to accompany every new job, or task. The first time we try anything we are clumsy, slow and inefficient. When we watch an expert do it – a person who has done the task a thousand times, we see the speed and efficiency that can be gained with practice. There is great value to patiently giving ourselves time to learn the task.
Children trust people with integrity and experience. I will never forget the first time I witnessed a void in my own ability to do a job. I was just a sophomore in college, I was volunteering at my church’s mother’s day out nursery on a Wednesday morning when I did not have a class. I was single, had no children, and quite frankly had no business trying to handle the babies in the cradle roll section – those who were crib babies, and usually under the age of two. One morning, a young mother dropped off her son who was about fifteen months old and quite glued to her side. He did not want her to leave and as soon as she set him down he began to squall.
I tried to console him, offered him toys, tried to hold him, tried everything I knew with my limited repertoire. After a few moments, an older, far more experienced woman appeared in the doorway of our room (half-door shut) and extended her arms out to him. He walked over to her, lifted up his arms to indicate acceptance of her assuring arms, and she swooped him up. He calmed immediately. My jaw on the ground, I knew that I had just witnessed the true miracle of experience. I vowed to one day be that comfortable and comforting to young children.
2. Lack of the right skill set
This is a direct result of KNOWING YOURSELF – knowing your skill set so that you can be honest with employers AND YOURSELF about what your capabilities are.
There is nothing so uncomfortable as trying to do a task for which we don’t have the skills. I have spent many years in the secondary classroom. I have held middle school, high school and college classrooms full of students spell-bound.
But one time, several years ago, when I was the counselor in an elementary school, I was asked to cover a fifth-grade class. I thought — oh, this is simple. I have taught for 40 years, this will be a piece of cake.
I was a dismal failure. I didn’t have any control of the classroom. I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough.
I can handle those elementary students on stage, and in a one on one counseling session, but I do not have the right skill set to teach a whole classroom of them.
3. Fear of failure/fear of success:
Understandably, many people do not do their best work because they are frightened. They are afraid that they will fail, so they don’t try. If I don’t try it, I won’t fail at it.
For children of poverty, and indeed all of us, the greater issue is not fear of failure – it’s fear of success. If I do this thing – if I am successful at it, I will just have to keep doing it, and that’s a lot of hard work. I don’t know if I can keep that up. Failure or not doing my best has become my way of doing things. I don’t know if I am ready or willing to change that.
Perhaps what I have been talking about is one element of our self-worth. If I do my best – to the best of my ability – I am building my self-worth. I am growing my confidence. I am adding to my health and happiness.
The Bible tells us: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NIV)
So no matter what we attempt to do – from a simple task to a complex project, let’s choose to do our best.
When we do our best, we are presenting the highest version of ourselves, we are growing our integrity, and we are building our self-worth. Honestly, when we do our best, we are doing holy work. Amen.
There is a world of wisdom packed into these words from NBA player Patrick Beverley:
“Things are not going to be easy, things are not going to be fair. Just do your best.” — Patrick Beverley
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