Do you know that place when you can hide from stress and the darkness of the cruel world? Probably, you think about a special place right now. It can be a real place like a hidden bench in the park near your office where you usually enjoy your lunch-break or it can be an abstract place like the Narnia of YouTube. The places like this are called your happy place. The Narnia of YouTube is my No.1 happy place. A couple of days ago I realised I have another one: my workplace.
Yes. It is weird isn’t it? Well, it should not be weird to feel happy at your workplace. It should be normal since you spend most of your time there. There was a 5-day challenge which helped me to improve my strength and turned work to my second happy place.
It called the Strengths Challenge 2015 by Michelle Mcquaid and her team who believes that creating a daily eleven-minutes strengths habit is an easy way to put people’ strengths to work. Firstly, you have to identify the strength you want to develop. (Find out more about your strengths by taking the free VIA survey.) The next step is to cue the habit in 30 seconds. At the third part you will need 10 minutes. You have to practice your strength-development routine. Dive into a routine that allows you to put your strengths to work. The last part was the FUN part. Reward your behaviour for 30 seconds.
I chose creativity. They say a creative adult is a child who survived. I think you don’t have to survive to be creative, you can improve that just like any other skills. How did my 10-minute practice look like? I decided to check different projects on crafty sites like Pinterest or Weheartit and watch tutorial videos on YouTube. To be honest I was an eager-beaver… Sometimes it took a little more than 10 minutes, just for the fun! I got some really great ideas about desk organizing, office-exercises, home-made lunch and a lot of other things. My reward was a nice latté and a little group messaging with my friends.
Creativity can be used in any kind of work. For instance I have to use it to create content, edit pictures, write catchy social media updates or blogposts, create nice infographics etc. But as I said you can use your creativity in any kind of job. “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and, – SNAP – the job’s a game.” Sounds familiar? Marry Poppins. Isn’t it fun to find the right pop cultural reference to your message? She was right, you just have to be creative and find your spoon full of sugar which will help you to get the job done.
Or you don’t even have to be that creative just find the thing what you’re really good at it, your strength. Built on it then use it daily to take care of your tasks. You’ll feel much happier during your work hours when you feel that you’re really good at what you’re doing. So, I bet you have daily 11 minutes to transform your workplace into a better place for yourself.
If you would like to explore your own strengths and how they can benefit you, book a free exploration session.
