Many will say that we all need a
job to earn money and satisfy our basic and personal needs. This is true at a
certain extent but money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness. One shouldn’t think
that he or she is richer because of money that he or she owns. Try looking at
the picture. You are richer by the experiences you gain in life, by your
ability to interact with others and by the person you grow day after day. In
the following lines, I want to share with you why one must have a professional
life. Believe it or not, when the clock hits 6 AM in the morning, I almost
never want to get up from my bed because my sleep is priceless. However I then
remind myself that I want my worth to increase with time so today is another opportunity
for me to prove myself.
Education has allowed you to gain
knowledge and skills and thus, the work environment you belong to is the place
to apply them into practice. Knowledge is infinite, so you will always be
exposed to new concepts. A good understanding of those concepts will keep you
going on. The same goes with skills, i.e. you’ll develop either new skills or
reinforce the skills you have for the better. With this, you’ll gain experience
and this is how your value will increase in this world. If you can get the
basic tasks done properly, you’ll get new responsibilities and the level of
difficulty will increase with time. With new challenges, you get to combine
many of your work related concepts and skills together and you’ll be surprised
of the results at the end. Don’t ever underestimate how a combination of your
basic knowledge and skills can solve something that seems like a big issue.
We need various experiences to
enrich ourselves and as the world is constantly changing, let it be technology
or anything else, we need to have an idea of how much we’re able to do and what
is the next level of responsibility we can take. Another key point about having
various experiences is that you’ll be quickly able to switch from one task to
another and to pick up one from where you’ve left. Ask yourself whether you’d be
happy with routine all the time? For many of you, I doubt the answer is yes.
Therefore, the best way to escape routine is to be ready for new opportunities
that knock on your door and at least give them a try. The outcome may be
positive or negative but you’ll be the winner because you got a new experience.
The more you accomplish, the more you will want to do and by exceeding people’s
expectations, you will be assigned greater challenges.
A second interesting aspect of
having a professional life is the ability to interact with others and share your
knowledge and skills. I believe what makes a job fun is the people you have to
work with. Team spirit is the key for a pleasant work environment unless you
prefer working with nobody around, it’s indeed a personal choice. I personally
have had and still have amazing coworkers and I see myself progressing in life
thanks to them. Having the opportunity to work with coworkers allows you to
exchange your knowledge and skills and as you get enriched, you also get to
contribute in others’ career. I’ll give a simple personal example here: I enjoy
every opportunity I get to make my colleagues understand something that may not
be clear to them. No question is stupid whether it comes from a junior or a
senior; my day is made when I solve a puzzle in someone’s mind. We are human
beings, we’re not perfect and we all need time to understand, apply and grasp
the concepts we’re taught. Sometimes, it’s just about saying the same thing in
different words and we become so helpful to our colleagues.
Interacting with others makes the
work environment more lively rather than boring and dead. A smile on your face
and a positive attitude that shows you’re willing to cooperate can totally make
a difference in someone’s day. From my personal experience, I’ve seen some of
my coworkers getting stressed out in situations where a mistake has happened
and they weren’t able to think of an efficient solution to solve it. I then
proposed a very simple solution that would come to my mind and their anxiety
disappeared in less than two minutes. This type of scenario makes me and would
also make you feel valuable and you would be helping someone and release him or
her from any extra useless stress.
The third and biggest advantage
of having a professional life is to discover more about yourself and this
definitely makes you feel that you’re growing. When you’re at work, you surely
feel some kind of pressure in order to show that you are strong and competent
in the tasks you’re assigned to. If you’re able to complete well a task under
stressful situations, it’s a good sign. From those circumstances, you get to
learn more about how you can handle difficulties and this is always a
work-in-progress task. Sometimes you may think that you’re not good enough for
a task but as you get the opportunity, you’ll get to prove yourself wrong and
that’s in fact amazing. At the end, you’ll just find out more about your
strengths and weaknesses.
Besides the above, you also get
to find out more about your likes and dislikes. Be realistic. You don’t need to
like every task that’s assigned to you. It takes some courage to admit it but
if you know you don’t like it, half of the work is done, i.e. you will be more
productive on tasks that you like. There are always tons of opportunities
around, so try the ones that come to you as you never know if they may open new
doors to your career. As they often say, it’s just a matter of stepping out of
your comfort zone and that’s when the fun begins.
Apart from the three main ideas
I discussed, pay attention to how your coworkers respond to the efforts you put
in. They may also play a huge role in bringing out the best traits in you.
Don’t ignore their words. If they see a lot of potential in you, then believe
in them. Take the time to think about how you can go beyond the expectations
you’ve set for yourself. I personally believe that hard work cannot kill
anybody but you can die of boredom. Sure, I haven’t died yet of boredom but
I’ve sometimes felt that I was working beyond my capacities but as soon as I’d
get recognized by my peers, I was more motivated to exceed the expectations set
for me and I felt like I was stronger than I thought I was. Thus, don’t be
afraid of working hard, and as they say "If you ever feel like giving up,
remember that there’s someone out there that looks up to you. Do it for them. "
Having a professional life can be
interesting if you know what you’re looking for. I am not saying money is not
important but you’ll be much happier if you look beyond your pay. It’s really
up to you to make the best out of your job. We all have a right for respect so
no job is smaller than the other. The points I shared with you are how I myself
look at my professional life. Of course that doesn’t mean that I am happy every
day at work but I know I’ve given my best at the end of the day. Finally, I
think my professional life has taught me what it means to be happy and that’s
something I gradually learned to apply in my personal life. There were so many
things about myself that I wasn’t aware of and I am still discovering them. So
be optimistic and keep in mind that a positive attitude is definitely the
starting key to an interesting journey.
