Loving The One You Are With
Memories are potent, especially when they are triggered by a powerful sense. As I drove to work today thinking about a variety of things including what the heck I am going to do with my special Valentine’s person this upcoming weekend, I heard a song from way back that transported me back to my high school days when it was raging all over the airwaves, that song was “Love the One You’re With” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. There is just something about that song that reminds me to be happy with the people around me. I arrived at work happy, and full of gratitude because that song put in a genuinely appreciative and abundantly thankful mood. My soul was full of good feelings, appreciation and yes, LOVE!
But that is how I feel today.
In my much younger past, my work life was not always so joyous. I did my best to love the companies that I was with. Although I did love those companies, like many Gen X’ers back in the day, I jumped at better opportunities many times throughout my career. Quite frankly, I wish I had a few “do-overs” because I made several bad career moves.
I should have loved more of the companies that I was with when I was with them because they were great companies, and I learned a lot from them. Only after jumping around a bit from bad move to mediocre move, always searching for greener pastures, did I see that I blew a few good things. Not just once, but several times. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, then I was 100% certified insane!
My older self can now look back, and shake my head, and wonder how on earth I made it through and got to where I am today. I see so many talented people with the same resume I had, searching, but not knowing, how best to love the love they are with. Let me share some of the lessons I’ve learned with you for professional and personal happiness, that I hope will help you love the one that you are with for a lifelong love affair with both your job and possibly even a lifelong love affair with your love interests, whoever and whatever those may be.
Professional Happiness In Your Career
1. Choose Right.
Earlier, I related how I jumped from job to job, never satisfied. Several of the companies I chose were fantastic, but I just did not have the staying power I should have had. Know what you want out of a job, a company and a career or you will spend your entire adult life searching for happiness in one unfulfilled job after the other.
There’s an old saying that the secret to a successful, long and happy marriage is to simply, marry right. The same can be said about happiness in one’s career, choose right. Now that is easy to say and hard to do but shouldn’t’ that be the goal? If you choose the right job, company and career than more times than not, professional happiness will find you.
2. Go All In.
After the honeymoon period wears off of any new gig, the little things become bigger little things and the euphoria of the new gig fades. Before you know it, you have one foot out the door, looking for the next “new” gig and the next euphoric honeymoon feeling. The cycle starts again, and off you go to another job eventually unhappy as ever.
Once you have found the right job, company and career for yourself, go all in. And going all in is what it takes to be successful in any job these days. Going all in doesn’t mean giving up everything in your life for your chosen company and career. It doesn’t mean to work 60 to 70 hours per week, week after week. It does mean commit to your career path and be the very best you can be in your chosen career.
What I am saying here is this, what is stopping you from going all-in if you found the right situation for your career happiness? Why stop yourself from reaching your full potential, and finding purpose? Go all in!
If you go all in, you give yourself the chance to find purpose, to find joy. Chances are, you will find success on this journey as well. Go all in.
3. Disconnect.
Some of the most successful people that I have ever been around work hard, and I mean really hard, but when they leave work, they disconnect equally hard. They leave technology behind and just focus on themselves and others. Some of the least successful people that I have been around work 70-plus miserable, angry hours per week, and have never learned to separate and disconnect. They make themselves miserable as well as those around them. If you are doing number 2 above correctly, you will need to learn how to disconnect from work.
When you choose right and go all-in professionally, then it’s easy to disconnect and enjoy time away from work doing things in life that bring you enjoyment. And when we disconnect and find enjoyment in doing those things that bring us tons of personal happiness we feel more energized to go back to our job at that same company week after week, year after year enabling us to love the one that we are with for a career of lifelong happiness!
Personal Happiness In Your Life.
1. Forgive.
I have seen many careers tank because people had life hit them so terribly hard that they were not able to separate their outside life issues and challenges from the demands of their job. One thing that I have seen help people over and over again to move thru some of these life challenges and thus save their jobs and relationships, is the single act of forgiving. People are, forgive the expression, only human. We fail. We disappoint others., We can be thoughtless and inconsiderate, but, even with all of our flaws, people will also amaze you more than they will disappoint you.
We have the capacity to forgive wrongdoing because we have the empathy to recognize we have done similar in our own lives. Our capacity for empathy enables us to grow as people, to learn to become better than we were the day before. It’s important to recognize that when we clutch past wrongs to our hearts and wear grudges like our favorite pair of sneakers, we will never grow beyond them. Unhappiness will weigh on your heart and mind, holding you back from your true potential for joy and love. Your lifelong happiness depends on your ability to let go of the past, and embrace all that the future holds for you and by forgiving others, you set yourself free to realize that joyous future. Forgive.
2. Disrupt.
Routine can be positive, but mentally, you can also get stuck in a rut. Disrupt your routine with an activity that is outside of your wheelhouse. If you are having a tough time thinking of what you can do differently, try this exercise. Make a list with two columns. List your top five favorite things to do on one side, and then list the exact opposite of that activity on the other. If you like to watch TV, read a book, or read some news on your favorite piece of technology. I enjoy movement of any kind, and so for me, the opposite is sitting in the park, quietly watching a sunset even thou my wife of 30 years still tries to get me to go to the park!
Take your routine a step further by adding a few activities you just don’t think would be fun. Take a painting class, or learn to crochet. Compete in a 5k, or volunteer with animals. The point is to break up your routine and challenge your brain and your body. Disrupt your patterns, and find joy, love and happiness.
Disrupt those routines that are making you boring, and go try new things. Live the life that you were meant to live. At the same time, stop trying to fit in all of the time when you were born to stand out. Standout!
3. Be Nice.
Jenifer Dukes Lee once said, “In a world where we can be anything, just be nice.” She’s so right! A sour attitude not only impacts your joy, but you also can infect those around you with negativity. On the flip side of that, your joy and love can be just as infectious. Compliment a stranger, or notice a co-worker’s new outfit.
During my medical recovery process that I going thru at the moment with my surgically repaired right quadriceps tendon, I have been amazed at how many people have been so incredibly nice to me. As I work through rehabilitating my injury, the joy of those working with me has changed my soul for the better…forever… and there is no going back for me on this one.
Today I am more kind than ever because of the kindness that has been bestowed upon me by people that I know and by people that I have never previously met. Be nice and pay this forward to everybody that you possibly can. Smile, laugh, have some fun and most of all, be nice to yourself, and be nice to everybody around you!
Bringing it all together now, by loving the one you’re with, you can find incredible professional and personal happiness and as the lyrics to this great song goes, “Don’t be angry – don’t be sad, don’t sit crying over the good times you’ve had, there’s a girl right next to you and she’s just waiting for something to do”. Happy Valentine’s everybody and go have a fantastic Valentine’s weekend with whoever your special Valentine’s may be!
Until Next Time,
Your Staffing Partner, Darrin Rohr- President, CEO and Chief Servant
Current owner of HH Staffing and Former Chief HR Officer for several successful Multinational Fortune 500 Companies. Brings fresh perspective from decades of experiences creating Great Workplace Cultures by building high performance teams while leading and managing people from all different backgrounds. HH Staffing is headquartered in Sarasota, Florida and is uniquely positioned to serve both local and national clients.
