There are many ways to do fine work. One approach is to play to your strengths, do satisfying work and achieve success. Different people follow these steps when doing different activities.
You may do this when encouraging people, cooking, gardening, doing creative projects or tackling certain challenges. You may do it when working as a medic, designer, leader, crisis manager or in another role.
Imagine that you want to continue to follow this approach. One way is to focus on the activities where you pursue the following themes.
Strengths
You play to your strengths. You focus on the specific activities where you can deliver As rather than Bs or Cs. You focus on those where you are in your element – at ease and yet able to excel.
Satisfying Work
You do satisfying work. You set specific goals, follow strategies that work and find solutions to challenges. You sometimes become so absorbed in the process that you go into a state of flow.
Success
You do your best to achieve success. You keep doing superb work, focus on continuous improvement and reach your goals. You may also do something special and add that touch of class.
Different people follow these steps when doing different activities but there is often one common denominator. They do things that give them positive energy and can lead to positive results.
Let’s look at some examples. Here are the kind of things that some people say about their work.
The Accident & Emergency Nurse
I love my work. During my early career I tried many different kinds of nursing but settled on working in Accident & Emergency. You get to help people at some of the most challenging times in their lives.
Every day is different. You can be helping people who have strokes, have been attacked or have life-threatening injuries. Sometimes you go home feeling exhausted but privileged to be able to help people.
The Technical Problem Solver
I have always loved solving problems. As a kid I used to take things apart and then put them back together. I enjoyed figuring out how things worked and then making them work better.
My work now involves helping companies to solve computer and other technical problems. That is often reactive but I am now moving on to helping companies to be proactive and design better systems for the future.
The Football Academy Director
I enjoy running the youth academy for our club. Whilst I love football, my role has elements of the kinds of pastoral care that helped me when I had to retire from playing in my twenties.
The academy aims to create a positive atmosphere in which people can take responsibility, develop and thrive. Our goals are to help the young players:
To increase their chances of playing in our first team;
To, where appropriate, help them to make a living in football;
To provide them with life skills they can use to care for their wellbeing and shape a career inside or outside football.
Whilst I have had chances to become the first team coach in other clubs, this is the role I prefer. It is great to help young people to learn skills they can use in many aspects of their lives.
There are many ways for people to do fine work. One approach is for them play to their strengths, do satisfying work and do their best to achieve success.
Let’s return to your own life. Looking ahead, can you think of a specific activity where you may want to follow elements of this approach? This could be in your personal or professional life.
You may want to do this in your own life. Alternatively, you may want to follow it when helping another person to do such work. How could you follow this approach in your own way?
If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
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