Me? Well, I was caught off guard yesterday when I stumbled upon my divorce certificate while hunting for other documents.

Maybe it was because I’d been having such a delicious weekend. On Saturday I’d done a wicked Bodypump class, met up with an old friend and gone window shopping. Sunday morning I’d hung out with Steve drinking coffee, talking shit, and having a laugh. I’d just been saying how happy I was with life right now when it struck.

It wasn’t at all the memory of the divorce itself. At the end of the day that was just a bit of paper that landed through my door one morning without ceremony. No, it was the memory of  the years of empty Sundays that had preceded it.

You may well be thinking that this is not the kind of experience that you’d associate with generally upbeat and positive me? And perhaps that’s all the more reason that I want to share it with you.

See, I’d got married when I was 24, right after my mother died. I’d undoubtedly confused love with needing security, but after the frenzy of organizing the wedding, life began to feel flat. Of course, I was mourning the loss of my mother, but everyone else had moved on, so I imagined I should have too and blamed it on my job at the time. Andrew was also bored, so we hatched a plan to get ourselves “down south” and into more exciting jobs. He ended up getting work near Horsham, where we bought a house: I joined Amex in London and began commuting.

Last week I was writing about stories. The one I’d written for that part of my life was more like a fairy tale. Poor orphan girl is rescued by her knight in shining armor who carries her off to a foreign land where she has a wonderful career, owns a detached house, has two cars on the drive and takes a couple of foreign holidays every year. To the outside that’s probably how it looked. But, as Roxy Music says: “In every dream home, a heartache”.

For a start, Andrew was no prince charming. Far from being my hero, he leached me emotionally and financially. Monday to Friday he was a catering manager. But most weekends, even in the depths of winter – in fact, especially in the depths of winter – he was at some windsuring meet-up in some or other part of the country. I’d tried to join in with that crowd, but it wasn’t my scene. There is nothing more boring than freezing your face off for hours watching small dots on the horizon; or standing in bars all night getting off your head drunk watching men in their twenties and thirties acting like school boys.

So, increasingly I spent my weekends in this odd situation where I was married, but was always alone. From time to time I’d touch my sense of isolation. I’d feel sorry for myself and wonder what I was doing. I’d consider how my reality didn’t fit my fantasy. But for the most part I avoided really looking at it. It was easier to hold things together than to confront things and kick-start a chain of events that might lead to God knew where.

I escaped to work as a way of numbing out

Yesterday as I sat there awash with all those feelings again, and the sadness for myself that I’d had to endure them at all, I asked myself “How? How did I do it? How did I get through these awful days and survive?”

I suppose I’ve known this for some time, but yesterday it came home to me with more felt force. I’d completely numbed myself out on what was happening. And work was the key thing that allowed me to do so. Although it was always a shock to the system when the alarm went off at 6.00 am, Mondays were always a relief. At work I knew who and where I was. I felt confident and capable there. I could throw myself into deep waters with a strong degree of certainty that I’d find my horizons sooner or later. But the same was far from true in my personal life.

It’s ironic that I chose to work in Human Resources. I like to think that I did so from a very caring perspective and that I was a good leader. I certainly had a lovely team of people around me, and some great colleagues; people who felt like family. But there was safety in that too. I could give all of myself Monday to Friday and withdraw on the weekend. At a level, it didn’t have to touch me.

Of course the whole thing fell apart. It was always going to. The first domino went down on discovering that Andrew’s playboy motto – “windsurfers do it standing up” – was now referring to more than just his sailing pursuits. I’ll spare you the detail of the battle for my sanity that went on around all of that for another day. Suffice to say that my corporate career was at its peak as I went through a painful and protracted divorce on grounds of infidelity.

Why am I sharing all of this? What’s its relevance to the blog?

Well, work can play a hugely important role in our lives. When we put who we are to the service of the world the sense of engagement and satisfaction can be enormous. But it’s also possible to use work to vicariously meet needs in us that we’re currently unable to address elsewhere.

I’d love to tell you to stop doing so and to concentrate more on what’s really going on. But I fear that’s coaching bullshit, and that, if you’re pouring yourself unduly into your work, and avoiding your self in the process, it’s because at a level somehow you need to right now. For me, finding my way back to my self was not a decision, but a process that took time. Indeed, it’s one that’s ongoing. Instigating divorce proceedings was only the beginning of me doing my own different kind of work; an inner work that would allow me to resurrect my soul.

And yes, I’ve done a lot to get to the point of having a very rich and happy life. But even now I have days of being drawn down into my feelings and wanting to escape from them. It’s just that, this time I decided to share it.

How about you? How do you use work as a way of escaping from your self? What one small thing can you do today to give your self some space?
photo credit: HikingArtist.com

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Today I’m delighted to welcome the super-talented Tara Sophia Mohr. Her beautiful piece challenges us to consider what our real work is – and how we can do it, irrespective of what job we might currently be doing.

Work Worthy of You

There you are. You. A sacred human being, with your particular form of brilliance. It may be a form of brilliance that school teachers knew how to recognize, and they at school could assess, but probably not. It may be a form of brilliance that your parents saw and spoke to you about, probably not. But don’t be confused, your unique brilliance resides within you, and the world needs it.

Then there is your heart, your desire to create something of value, something that heals or enriches or improves the world. There is your desire to be part of something good, something ethical, something meaningful.

Work can be about all of this. Work can be the experience that uses your gifts and fulfills your desire for contribution. Work can be the ultimate expression of what you came here, to this planet, to do. Work can be worthy of the sacredness of you.

The Mind Baggage

Here comes the mind-baggage, the voice that rushes in to say, “but I could never make a living doing something that I love.” The belief that you could never be more than an easily exchangeable part in the vast economic machine. There are all the fears – of failing if you go your own way, of what other people will think, of the risks of dropping out of the mainstream way. There is the fear of ending up starving on the street.

It is up to each of us to question these fears – are they true? Are they guiding you in a wise way? Do they reflect a realistic assessment of risk? Are they voices of reason, or simply voices of fear?

If you set all those fears aside, place them outside the chamber of your thinking, what do you see now, about what you want? What do you see now about what is possible?

Your Job vs. Your Real Work

In my work with coaching clients, we make a distinction between their jobs and their real work. Their jobs are whatever they are doing to earn income at the moment.

Their real work is what they feel called to do, the work that feels right in the soul. It’s the work that ignites their passion and releases the adrenalin in their veins. It’s the work that makes life feel more alive and colorful, yet more calm and balanced, all at the same time. It’s the work that makes them feel stronger, that makes them feel like themselves.

I stand for this: everyone can do their real work – no matter what their job at the moment. Everyone has the opportunity to begin doing their real work – in some way – no matter what their external circumstances — financial constraints, family responsibilities, lack of time.

If your real work is protecting the environment and your job is trading stocks, you can do your real work through volunteering, political action, and philanthropy. If your real work is teaching music and your job is web design, you can teach music to a person in your community, once a week.

It’s the self-sabotaging voice within us that makes it either-or, black and white. That part of us loves the melodramatic idea that you had to give up your passion long ago, that there is just no way to keep it alive now that you have a mortgage, family, demanding job…you fill in the blank. That part of us sees us as stuck, powerless victims when it comes to creating fulfilling work.

Why? Because doing our real work is scary. It’s real. It’s emotional. It’s vulnerable. It evokes to fear to start claiming our real lives, to start living more authentically, so a part of us tries to keep us safe in the known status-quo.

But you are bigger than that, and smarter than that, so notice the fear, notice the resistance, and start doing your real work, in some manageable, doable way.

You’ll find that the joy and energy you get from doing your real work is so big and rich and powerful that even small amounts of time spent on it will change your life.

Create the Relationship Between Your Job and Your Real Work

As you do your real work more and more, you get to decide: what do you want the relationship between your job and your real work to be? They can be one and the same: you can make your real work also the thing you do for income. Or they can remain separate. Or they can overlap somewhat, but not entirely. You get to decide.

At different stages of our lives, and based on our different personalities and needs, different solutions work. For example, Carol’s real work is helping struggling youth, and she thinks one day, maybe after her kids have left the nest, she’d like her job to be in that field. For now, she really appreciates a less demanding, moderately fulfilling job that allows her flexibility and lots of time with her family. For the time being, she works with youth organizations as a volunteer and board member, and she loves it. Mark, another client, recently decided that it just wasn’t fulfilling enough for him to keep his job and his real work separate. He made a major career change and started a finance business run in a socially responsible way, pursuing his real work calling.

You get to decide what you want the relationship between your job and your real work to be, but there is no excuse for turning your back on your real work.

Your real work will reduce stress and resentment and pessimism in you, and it will bring more humor, lightness of spirit, and emotional balance into your life. It will bring more meaning and vitality into your daily existence. And it will give the world what the world is so thirsty for – human beings showing up in their full vitality to contribute for the good.

Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer, coach, and personal growth teacher. She writes the blog Wise Living. You can receive her free Goals Guide, “Turning Your Goals Upside Down and Inside Out (To Get What You Really Want)” by clicking here.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

Related posts:

1. The Birth of a New Work Pioneer
2. Here’s How New Work Pioneers Navigate Their Journey
3. Deviation From The Norm – My Different Kind Of Work

Monday morning. How did it feel to get out of bed and anticipate another week?

Much of your answer will depend on how you choose to see the work you do.

Job

If you see your work as a job, you consider it primarily as something you do for money. That’s not to say that, at a level, you don’t enjoy it or don’t get along with some of your colleagues. But the chances are you have little real engagement to it.

What’s important is that you earn the money you need to finance your life.

When this job is done, you’ll hope to get another of the same. You live for the weekend, for holidays and to retire.

Career

Having a career means that somewhere along the way – at school, or university perhaps – you hit on a chosen field within which you wanted to work. A profession maybe like accountancy, or law. Or teaching, or science, or medicine, or business management.

Whatever, study and training have probably been an aspect of your journey to date. Progression is important; there’s a strong sense of the career ladder and you want to get as high up it as you can. In fact, a lot of your motivation is about getting more or better, whether that’s in the shape of salary or benefits or any of the other outward trappings of career success.

When your current position comes to an end, you’ll want a move that signifies progression or at least one that you can position as such on your CV.

Calling

When what you do for a living feels like a calling to you, work is its own reward. You turn up and do what you do because you love it. It means something to you beyond the here and now.

You bring something of yourself to the world, and the world needs it. Whether that’s your entrepreneurialism, or your unique writing voice; whether you’re finding the antidote for a serious disease or are developing the prototype for a new invention. Whatever, how you choose to do it will be pretty unique to you.

Sure, you want to be paid for your work, but that’s an outcome; a consequence. The primary thing is the work itself. In fact, you enjoy what you do so much and it’s such a part of you that the idea of retiring seems a bit strange to you.

So, Monday mornings, like any other mornings are other exciting days to work on your thing.

So, which is yours: Job, Career, or Calling?

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• Only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their work.
• This is the lowest level recorded in 22 years of this survey
• Only 51% of people find their jobs interesting
• Of the under 25s, 64% of workers say they’re unhappy at work.

Before you think this is just a US thing, the trends pretty much tally with recent findings from the CIPD who report only 37% of Brits as saying they’re satisfied at work.

The Conference Board put the figures down to low job interest, incomes not keeping up with inflation and the percentage of US pay that now goes toward health insurance, whilst the CIPD highlight the need for more employee communication and consultation.

The concern on both sides of the pond is that, left unaddressed, this problem could stifle the future growth of US and UK economies.

Hmmmm.

This expression of the problem – admittedly my paraphrasing of it – got me thinking.

What if, instead of looking at this phenomenon through the eyes of The Economy, the researchers and all those people who are able to give the experience of work to others took a different tack? What if they stepped into the moccasins of the tribe of people who are dissatisfied with work and tried to understand how things are from their perspective?

What would they see?

That the whole current employment idea, that they are tethered to a company in lieu of large chunks of their lives in order to get payroll numbers, job grades, pay and benefits – even if childcare and sabbaticals are part of the arrangement – isn’t really cutting it for them any more?

That the strictures of cubicle offices, even the most expensive architecturally designed ones, often make them feel hemmed in?

That, these days, they see through the stories they’re told and the games that go on around them in the name of personal and organisational progress?

That they increasingly experience work to be soulless and that they often feel robbed of their energies by having to engage in meaningless pursuits?

That this recession has meant that many of them have been emotionally and financially kicked in the teeth. But that what’s happened now has just been confirming data about their sense of value, or rather, dispensability?

That some of them are choosing to stay in their current jobs for now but are either moonlighting to develop their coaching or blogging businesses, or polishing off their CVs, so that when The Economy turns, they’ll be off?

That others of us have already left to set up lifestyles for ourselves that allow us entirely different working experiences – ones that honour our spirit?

I don’t know about you, but for me that kind of report would make for interesting reading and give the real people behind the job (dis)satisfaction statistics their place.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The Birth of a New Work Pioneer
2. Lost heart with your current job? Don’t rush to escape
3. Five Things That Help New Work Pioneers Make Real Change

Studs Terkel (1974)

Have you ever stopped to really think about this thing we call “work”? I don’t know about you, but pretty much all of my schooling was geared around what I was going to do “when I grew up”. And, growing up in a working class suburb of Glasgow, the Calvanistic work ethos was embedded in my whole way of being. Then, work meant getting a job. And, given that the official Scottish unemployment rate when I graduated in 1982 was something like 22%, a job – any job – was something to feel lucky about.

In the UK at least, work defines us. It’s how we introduce ourselves. “I’m a (blah)…” we say, proudly if we’re happy about it, and with embarrassment if we’re not. Knowing what people do allows us to put them in a box where we can understand them. “He’s an accountant, therefore he’s boring.” “He’s a banker, therefore he’s rich – though maybe not so rich currently as he once was!”

I used to have an Italian boyfriend with whom I spent much time in Italy. It was disorienting for me that, there, few people ever asked me what I did. They were more interested in knowing about me. But who was I without being able to brag about being the director of my own consulting company?

My partner, Steve, and I run workshops called “Tough at the Top” for senior people who have come to some sort of career or life crossroads and are asking themselves questions about their work. As part of a process of helping them recalibrate and change focus, we ask them questions about what work means for them; why they do it. They share some great things:

1. “I always wanted to do what I do now.” Many people talk about having, if you like, a vocational interest in what they do that goes back, in some instances, to teenage or even childhood years. Many people, even at points of transition, recognise for themselves that there was always something about the career path they followed that was appealing to them.
2. “I get a sense of achievement and satisfaction from my work.” A lot of people who work in senior job roles talk about the experience they have of doing something that makes a mark somehow; that makes them feel good about themselves.
3. “At work, I get a sense of being connected to something much bigger than me.” It’s a common one: people often feel part of a community at work. They feel that, through identification with the brand name and the company of which they are part, they can do more than they are able to as an individual contributor.
4. “I am paid well.” Funnily enough, money is not always the first thing out of people’s mouths when you ask them why they do what they do. But it’s normally on the list somewhere. Because, for most of us, work is the vehicle through which we earn money, which, let’s face it, is the currency we need to fund whatever else we want from life.

Which brings me on to some of the, well, let’s say, more murky reasons why people work. Reasons that, as they negotiate some form of work transformation for themselves, whatever that looks like, tend to make the whole thing stickier than it might be:

1. “I need the money.” My lifestyle, they go on to say, is now such that I need to work, and earn very well, in order to keep funding it. Mortgages, second homes, cars, school fees, childcare, holidays, spouses who don’t work and whose lifestyles I support… I am handcuffed to my current job. I dare not do anything different, no matter how much I really rather would.
2. “I work to keep up with the demands of my job.” This an interesting one. Often when you probe a bit further, what people are really admitting to here, without using these words, of course, is a kind of addiction to work. These people, not to be confused with the genuinely in-love with their work kinds who can be consumed by what they are doing for hours without realising it, have formed a deeply unhealthy relationship with work. In fact, work often turns out to be the key relationship in their lives. I should know as I was this soldier. My addiction to work at one time caused me a marriage: I was so caught up in working sixteen hour days that I hardly ever saw my husband, and when I did I was recovering my energy for the next onslaught.
3. “What else would I do without this job?” Sometimes, they say, I think of doing something different. But what? Their jobs have become a safe place, something they resent, but can’t leave, fearful of the prospect of redefining themselves and perhaps finding that, underneath the suit there’s some hollow person with nothing worthwhile to offer the world. And that’s a pretty scary place to be.

What many of us don’t realise is that, in doing our big corporate jobs, we have bought into a system that by and large supports our increasingly out-moded, Post-Industrial Revolution economy. It’s a system that defines what work is through its lens, which tends to go along the lines of being employed by a “name”; having a job title, the bigger the better; getting a salary, a regular amount of money that magics its way into our bank accounts each month; and the benefits that go with it. With this often comes an implicit expectation of servitude; that you’re an employee and you’re here to serve “the business”, which means that you must expect at times to be treated like shit. And it’s a system that works for many, but by no means for all. Some of the more enlightened employers are switched on to thinking about the role people play in their business, but even so, it’s a woeful few who actually crack it.

Stand back and ask yourself:

• What does work mean for me?
• What do I get from it, good and bad?
• How is that for me?

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