Why are you doing what you don’t want to do?

I speak a lot about values, purpose and doing fulfilling work with passion to live your life with greatness.  Wow!  What a mouthful.  It might be better to simply say; “Do what YOU want to do.”

Are Monday mornings really hard to get out of bed for?  Are Friday afternoons the best part of the week?  Is lunch the most exciting part of the day?

If you answered “Yes” to one of those questions above, you need to seriously look at what you are doing.  If you answered “Yes” to all of the above, you need to quit what you are doing immediately!  You are most likely chasing your pension and the life changing benefit you are bringing with you every day is the ability to ‘fog a mirror.’

Chasing your passion is all about doing work that you can’t wait to get out of bed to do.  It means that you dream of doing it again the next day.

I am reminded of this from time to time.  I sometimes fall into the trap too.  It usually happens when I take on an project that I should not be doing.  I know this when I discover moments during the execution of the project when I feel like:

• Surfing the internet to mindless, current news sites like CNN
• Eating my lunch at 9:00 in the morning
• Doing origami art out of the recycled paper
• Making a post-it-note mural on the office window
• Sending a “SOS” signal in morse code using the flashlight on my smartphone to the office in the tower across the way
• Poking my eye out with a dull pencil.

The point is, as a leader, you ALWAYS need to be doing work that is in total alignment with your values, your purpose, your passion and that fulfills your greatness that you have to offer the world around you.  If we are not doing that, we will completely lack energy, enthusiasm, passion, meaning and… will be generally miserable.

I know a ton of executives and leaders that have walked away from great titles and good companies because the role was not ‘them’ and it was slowly killing them.  They are the lucky ones.  And… they have all gone onto to more fulfilling roles, more money and happiness (And happiness is contagious and spreads to every aspect of your life).

Are doing what you want to do?

Robert Murray is an Author, Global Speaker and Business Strategist. You can find Robert’s books on heart based leadership here. For further advice, ideas and inspiration on leadership, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.