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I’ve discovered the simplest test of whether or not you are doing work that is meaningful and engaging. It will tell you without fail if you enjoy your job.
image courtesy of Flickr User: Winter Stacey
All it takes is a simple alarm clock with a “snooze” button. When your alarm goes off in the morning, do you get up and start getting ready to go to work, or do you hit snooze? More importantly do you hit snooze multiple times. Do you dread getting out of bed and heading into work? Do you have to drag yourself kicking and screaming out the door to go to your job? Or do you get up and smile looking forward to what you’ve got on your plate today?
Obviously after a long night of work, or a few too many beers, some mornings are harder than others to escape the friendly confines of sleep, but if you start to see yourself hitting the snooze button more and more you are in trouble. Odds are you’re going to see yourself coming into the office later, leaving earlier, losing entire chunks of your day where you don’t get anything done, and all of the other office zombie behaviors we all hate.
image courtesy of Flickr User: Christopher Kennedy
If you are failing the snooze test, you have just one responsibility to yourself.
Eject, eject, eject. It’s time to get out of there and find something that excites you and engages your brain. Life is too short to be an office zombie. There are others who have done this. Find them, talk to them, and be free.
There is never a secret to success – except when there is. I’m going to give you the real one that all others are built on so that you can be radically successful.
Image courtesy of Flickr User: Auto Clasico Mallorca
It’s actually easy. All you have to do is figure out the exact right process to do whatever it is you do. If you build cars, you need to figure out what from Henry Ford or the Toyota Production System works for you. If you are making fast food hamburgers you’ll look to McDonalds or In-N-Out or whichever you want to emulate. But what you’re doing is finding your process. Define it, codify it, and build a system so that anyone in your organization can do it.
That part you know. Now for the secret.
All you have to do is take that process and repeat it without error 99 Million times. Once you’ve done that you’ve guaranteed yourself consistent excellence and success.
See, told you it was easy.
If you’re providing a service, you have one job and one job only.
Your sole job is to make your clients look like rockstars.
They came to you to be better than they were before you. They won’t recognize this, they won’t admit this, and you will rarely get recognition for that mission.
You can accomplish this in many ways, but keep that one ever arching goal in mind. You aren’t the rockstar, you’re the stage crew. Work like a roadie and if you’re lucky you’ll get the recognition you deserve.
Image found on www.failblog.com
