Who's got Your Back? Part 1

One of the perils of certain day jobs (especially in service occupations) is the physical strain that makes it difficult to do anything worthwhile after work. If you're on your feet all day serving food or giving care, if you're bending over to pull merchandise out of a bin or if you lift heavy objects, some after-hours activities, such as dancing in a musical, will be hard. Even if your passion/vocation is sedentary, such as writing, feeling achy and tired puts a crimp in your plans. I'll be writing more about measures you can take to alleviate pain and boost your energy, but here are a few quick suggestions to try:

• Do your "other life" activities before going in to work.
• Make sure you're in decent physical shape to begin with. I found that for me, a combination yoga-pilates class several times a week helped me become more resilient.
• Work several hours of project time into every day off.
  
• For heavy-duty house and yard projects, try getting a group of 3-4 friends or coworkers together and have a work party at each person's house. That way, necessary work gets done but none of you breaks your back doing too much.
• Finesse ways to carry out tasks at work without making moves that practically guarantee injury, such as lifting heavy objects by bending over (I know, I know- easier said than done! Just do your best.).

More later...

Treasure Hunt

One very effective way to turn your job into an ally on your creative path is make a point of finding something at work that you can use in your vocation/passion every workday. I call this tactic the Treasure Hunt.

If you're stymied for ideas on how to get anything worthwhile from work besides a paycheck, use the reporter's "5 Ws" to nudge your imagination:

• What: What goods or services does your place of work provide? Can these help you in any way?
• Where: Where is your workplace located? Is it in an area that might have useful resources?
• Who: Who are your co-workers? Have any of them been ever achieved a dream against odds and if so, would they be willing to share their stories with you? Could anyone provide contacts?
• When: When do you work? If you're typically on during busy times, could any of the people you meet serve as resources? If you often work during slow times, could you use this time to brainstorm project ideas (while doing your job, of course)?
• Why: This has to do with motivation - why you work for money and why you work on your passion for free. Can you tie your motivation for your Work-with-a-capital-w more closely to your job, maybe by listing and maximizing the good points about your job?

Each day, commit to finding one thing at work - a piece of information, a new contact, ally or organization, a bargain, an idea - that will help you along the way.

Be Excellent

During my stint as a sub in K-12 schools I attended many meetings but I'll always remember one in particular. I'd been covering a long-term assignment as a personal tutor/assistant to a disabled girl and had been at the school for a month. At one time during the meeting, one of the teachers referred to me as "What's-er-name." She apologized afterwords but it still had the effect of making me feel like a servebot.

One of my favorite work/career authors is Deborah Ann Smith (Temp, Work With What You Have). In Temp, one of her tips for having good experiences on temp assignments is "be excellent to each other." The world would be a much better place if we all practiced this, of course, but I have found it especially crucial when I'm either working a highly stressful job or am in a situation where I'm new or temporary and not part of the longtime office community.

To me, being excellent to everyone includes the following:

• Being interested in colleagues as people, not just coworkers. This gets me out of the "what can you do for me?" mode and into "maybe we can help each other."
• Learning names. "I'm just no good at names" is a cop-out. Keep a notebook for stray facts and info when you're new on the job and jot down notes about each person you meet.
• Greeting people when you pass them in the hall. This is so basic, but so many people don't do it.
• I read a saying somewhere: "Be good to each other. Remember that each of us is fighting a battle." Remembering that every person has struggles we don't know about helps build empathy. It also helps us appreciate people as full human beings with loves and lives outside the workplace.
• Refusing to get sucked into petty office politics or indulge in gossip.

No one can practice these perfectly all the time, but I've found in my own work life that just trying is a good start, turns it into a habit and makes a big difference.

Book

If you haven't read Five Good Minutes at Work by Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine, see if your local library has it. Part of the Five Good Minutes series, the book contains 101 brief (most take less than 5 minutes) activities or exercises for unloading stress, practicing mindfulness and recharging energy on the job. I found the suggestions for handling struggles in personal life during work hours especially helpful.

A Lilttle Comic Relief

For those who work in customer service occupations, check out

http://notalwaysright.com/

if you've had a bad day or someone gave you a lot of grief. A little laughter goes a long way.

Books! Books! Books!

Here are a few books that have been helpful to me in the quest to enhance the experience and meaning of work:

• The Off ice Sutras - exercises for your soul at work by Marcia Menter, 2003.
  
• Awake at Work: 35 practical Buddhist principles for discovering clarity and balance in the midst of work's chaos by Michael Carroll, 2006.
• Work as a Spiritual Practice: A Practical Buddhist Approach to Inner Growth and Satisfaction On the Job by L. Richmond, 2000.
• Take This Job and Love It: how to find fulfillment in any job you do by Matthew Gilbert, 1998
• Work With What You Have: ways to creative and meaningful livelihood by Deborahann Smith, 1999.
  

Each of these books contains numerous suggestions for using the practice of mindfulness on the job. Gilbert's book is especially useful for those in customer service occupations.

Getting Clear About Wishes

In every writers' group I've joined, there's always at least one person, usually several (myself included!) who fool themselves about not having enough time to write. Granted, if you're a homeschooling mother of six kids under age 12 and your husband travels on business, you probably have a genuine time issue. But most of us don't fall into this category.

A decade ago, my son was an unusually good-natured kid, my stepson only lived with us part time, and my husband didn't need a lot of nurturing and service. Both he and I are independent types. The house didn't need any more work than anyone else's, my jobs weren't usually too stressful and I didn't volunteer 50 hours a week at the school. I wasn't even a soccer mom, since neither boy did sports. Yet I hardly produced anything during that period. I have friends who don't have an unreasonable number of commitments or dependents, say they want to write, yet will find almost anything else to do (like clean the toilet) rather than sit down at the keyboard.

What gives?

There are probably zillions of possible reasons but the two biggies I can identify are 1) not being clear about what we really want to write, and 2) a resulting lack of focus.

No matter what your vocation, calling or dream, you need to have a specific picture in your mind's eye, and it needs to excite you. If it doesn't, you won't feel the pull to work on it. Clarifying your desires is the first step towards achieving concrete goals. For example, if you've always thought you want to be a writer (I use this example only because I'm familiar with it) but never get around to any actual writing, ask yourself these questions:

1. When am I in the flow - what excites me so much that I lose track of time when I'm doing it? If my answer isn't "writing," should I continue to halfheartedly pursue writing, or is it time for a change?

2. If my answer is "writing," what kind of writing is it? Storytelling? Poetry? News? Is it comforting or edgy? Lyrical or journalistic? What flavor or style am I drawn to?

3. What do I hope to accomplish with my writing - help people forget their troubles by entertaining them? Sell a product or service I believe in? Change someone's mind about an issue?

4. What do I see as my purpose in life (at least currently - purposes can change), and how does writing support this?

Answering these questions and doing some soul-searching is like creating a spotlight - once you have one or two projects that align with a heartfelt purpose, you'll look forward to working on them. Not only that, the energy they bring to your life will jumpstart your day job.