Keep the Joy in your Job

Do you remember the first time you got to do something super exciting for your job, your passion or your ministry?  For me it was hopping on a flight to Dunedin in 1995 and the sense that I was good enough at speaking and singing to be able to travel and share the message was SO exciting and affirming! 

Decades later (and countless flights later) I have consciously chosen to have a moment of gratitude each and every time I take off to speak at an event. 

It’s so easy to get used to things that started off as exciting, in fact it’s even got a name - Hedonic Adaptation. 

This is a perfectly normal strategy of the brain to conserve energy, but it has a downside. I define it like this. 

‘Todays boring, was yesterdays dream scenario.’

How quickly we forget that some of today’s mundane activities, we would have given our right arm for in the past! 

This weekend I had the privilege of delivering a Keynote to a room full of young creatives in Wellington and I shared this concept. A huge key to Mental Wellness is understanding and overriding Hedonic Adaptation. 

Here’s a way to get around this and help keep your focus on keeping things in your job and your personal life fresh and exciting. 

Reflect. Select. Celebrate. 

Reflect: what are the things you have or do now that are fulfillments of goals, dreams or aspirations of the past? 

Select: pick a couple that are easily identifiable (like take-off, or that first step onto the stage to share, or the fact that you are the one leading the staff meeting)

Celebrate: make a conscious habit of celebrating them each and every time they happen. 

Lives full of gratitude and celebration and lives that are lived to the fullest. What are you going to celebrate today? 

Ngā mihi nui 

Julia Grace