3 tips for balancing your soul work & salary work
“At the moment my life seems split between my soul work and salary work,” said one person. “I’d love to balance the two kinds of work - but I am not sure it is possible. What do you think?”
Many people have this dream. Some make it a reality - but it may require years to build-up the right balance. Here are three ideas to consider on the journey.
* You can clarify your soul work.
Start by tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the activities that for you feel like soul work. For example, teaching motivated students, writing articles, renovating houses, designing gardens or whatever. The work puts a spring in your step - probably because it involves both the heart and the head. Put on your imaginative hat. How can you generate a salary - even a small trickle of funding - from some of this soul work? There are a few rules to bear in mind. It is important:
a) To position what you offer so that it helps others to succeed.
b) To start with one customer - do great work - then continue building your network.
c) To accept that you will only generate a small amount of funding at first - but that is how all projects grow.
The key is to get your first customer, then build from there - but we will return to this later. Start by completing the following sentence.
The things that for me feel like soul work are:
*
* You can clarify your salary work.
Describe the activities that for you feel like salary work. You may do a reasonable job - but your heart is not in the activity. This can be because either: a) you don’t enjoy the work; b) you don’t enjoy the environment; c) a combination of both. One person wrote:
“The exercise highlighted something I knew intuitively, but had not verbalised. During my career I had run HR departments for several marketing companies. Three years ago, however, I set-up my own business providing specialist HR services to organisations. The business went well but then, one year ago, I began to feel empty. The exercise provided the answer - which should have been obvious.
“My best work is done in ‘creative cultures’ - such as marketing. But in my haste to build the business I had taken two assignments in ‘compliant cultures’. At first these went okay. Then one client asked me to introduce a performance management system that, in their view, should consist of an 8 page check list. The work was lucrative, so I stuck at it and ‘fought the battles I could win’, but it was dispiriting.
“Even though I love my job, in some cultures it becomes ‘salary work’. So I revisited all my contacts in the marketing sector - focusing on the cultures in which I thrive. This paid off and I now have enough clients in marketing and new media. Nowadays I am fortunate enough to do satisfying work.”
Try completing the following sentence.
The things that for me feel like salary work are:
*
* You can do soul work that generates a salary.
Today more people are aiming to do work they enjoy in an encouraging environment. You can find many ideas for making this happen in several pieces in The Strengths Toolbox. Try completing the following statements:
The soul work I would like to focus on doing is:
*
The benefits that potential customers could get from what I offer when doing this work are:
*
The specific things I can do to reach out to people in my network and get my first customer are:
*
Some people make soul work the basis for their whole career. Some focus on increasing the amount of such work - and also behave professionally when doing their salary work. Some do fulfilling work in their spare time and generate a little funding to feed their future development.
As Richard Florida wrote in his book The Rise of The Creative Class, some 38% of Americans now class their work as ‘creative’. Far from being selfish - this also improves society, both economically and emotionally. The countries and cities that provide such opportunities will, he believes, be increasingly successful in the future. Many more people are aiming to do work that feeds both the body and soul.
Start by tackling the exercise on this theme. Describe the activities that for you feel like soul work. For example, teaching motivated students, writing articles, renovating houses, designing gardens or whatever. The work puts a spring in your step - probably because it involves both the heart and the head. Put on your imaginative hat. How can you generate a salary - even a small trickle of funding - from some of this soul work? There are a few rules to bear in mind. It is important:
a) To position what you offer so that it helps others to succeed.
b) To start with one customer - do great work - then continue building your network.
c) To accept that you will only generate a small amount of funding at first - but that is how all projects grow.
The key is to get your first customer, then build from there - but we will return to this later. Start by completing the following sentence.
The things that for me feel like soul work are:
*
* You can clarify your salary work.
Describe the activities that for you feel like salary work. You may do a reasonable job - but your heart is not in the activity. This can be because either: a) you don’t enjoy the work; b) you don’t enjoy the environment; c) a combination of both. One person wrote:
“The exercise highlighted something I knew intuitively, but had not verbalised. During my career I had run HR departments for several marketing companies. Three years ago, however, I set-up my own business providing specialist HR services to organisations. The business went well but then, one year ago, I began to feel empty. The exercise provided the answer - which should have been obvious.
“My best work is done in ‘creative cultures’ - such as marketing. But in my haste to build the business I had taken two assignments in ‘compliant cultures’. At first these went okay. Then one client asked me to introduce a performance management system that, in their view, should consist of an 8 page check list. The work was lucrative, so I stuck at it and ‘fought the battles I could win’, but it was dispiriting.
“Even though I love my job, in some cultures it becomes ‘salary work’. So I revisited all my contacts in the marketing sector - focusing on the cultures in which I thrive. This paid off and I now have enough clients in marketing and new media. Nowadays I am fortunate enough to do satisfying work.”
Try completing the following sentence.
The things that for me feel like salary work are:
*
* You can do soul work that generates a salary.
Today more people are aiming to do work they enjoy in an encouraging environment. You can find many ideas for making this happen in several pieces in The Strengths Toolbox. Try completing the following statements:
The soul work I would like to focus on doing is:
*
The benefits that potential customers could get from what I offer when doing this work are:
*
The specific things I can do to reach out to people in my network and get my first customer are:
*
Some people make soul work the basis for their whole career. Some focus on increasing the amount of such work - and also behave professionally when doing their salary work. Some do fulfilling work in their spare time and generate a little funding to feed their future development.
As Richard Florida wrote in his book The Rise of The Creative Class, some 38% of Americans now class their work as ‘creative’. Far from being selfish - this also improves society, both economically and emotionally. The countries and cities that provide such opportunities will, he believes, be increasingly successful in the future. Many more people are aiming to do work that feeds both the body and soul.
You can find more ideas on doing your soul work and getting paid a salary in The Strengths Way, which can be found at:
posted by Mike Pegg at
09:46
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