“Parting is such sweet sorrow”, said William Shakespeare. Indeed, a deep comment!
Human beings love certainty; especially when the going is good, why should one think of rocking the boat? However, for each one of us, there is a time to say ‘goodbye’ and say ‘hello’ again. Like a child completes kindergarten school and moves on to primary school, we have to keep moving from one rung to another. It need not be a vertical climb from a lower rung to an upper rung always but we need some movement from time to time so that we get a fresh dose of energy and drive.
Life is melody when we love our job
We look forward to a new day at work when the work is interesting, the boss is supportive, the work environment is encouraging and the colleagues are people that we like to be associated ourselves. Over a period of time, we grow our relationships and start treasuring them or otherwise. An HBR article talks about a job that we love and draws a parallel with romance.
Not many of us are lucky to have a job that we love. Recent global research shows, employees are only moderately engaged with their organizations and leaders in countries like India, China, US and Canada, see this as one of their Top 3 challenges to be solved urgently. This is extremely critical for organizational success especially because we need employees to quickly adapt to volatile situations, solve problems proactively.
This underlines the point, a large number of us do not love our jobs though the employers have been trying to get us engaged and committed.
We have to evolve
As much we look to have a job that we love and develop a strong association with it, life takes its own course. Sometimes, it’s our ignorance or lack of adaptability that we fail to lap it up and take it in our stride. Notwithstanding these situations, many of us have jobs that we love dearly, we perform well day in, day out and receive appropriate amount of recognition. Life is a melody! However, we have to think of the future and unleash our potential. When going is good, it is worth introspecting if I am developing my capability to take on bigger roles and deliver greater impact. When the child does well in primary school, we do not keep her in primary levels for ever. When a CFO does well in the role and has possibly attained the heights that the environment could potentially provide, one has to look at greener pastures. We have to evolve!
Say hello again!
It is not an easy decision to firm up the time for uprooting oneself from the comfort zone. Due to our love for stability and equilibrium, we grow a fear of unknown and stay away from the risks associated with a new job, unexplored environment and unknown boss.
Sometimes people take the risk and jump into a new job, but it turns out to be a bad move. We have heard many such stories. These are enough to discourage one from moving out of the familiar land. We believe in the old adage, a known devil is better than an unknown angel. At the same time, we know of cases where people have taken the risk and created great impact for themselves and the society.
We have to introspect if we are adding value to ourselves with each passing year, delivering greater impact each year and there is a long enough runway ahead to roll before we take off. Moreover, one needs to deeply ask the question if one’s heart lies in what’s happening every day at work and one is measuring up to one’s own expectations. If answers to these questions are ‘YES’, then life is a melody and one can just keep enjoying the experience. Else, it’s time to say ‘hello’ to a new day. Unless one takes the step away from the safe harbour, it could be stunting one’s growth and inviting despair for the future.
