>> Here’s the AUDIO for today’s Transformation Tuesday. 

Most school days when I was a kid, my shoulders were sore. 

They were sore because of this funny mix of emotions I had going on inside. 

I was so 👏 freaking 👏 excited 👏 to get to school.

And at the same time, I was totally and completely engrossed in whatever I was reading or thinking about in the moment. 

So I’d be moving forward with full speed and momentum, but also deeply captivated with the present moment, often reading or cooking up A Brilliant Idea. 

As a result, as I was rushing around in my eagerness to get to school, I’d often miss the mark on getting through the doorway of my childhood home. I’d hit the door jamb hard with my shoulder 4 or 5 times before I even left for school on any given day. 

This memory came to mind last week when I did exactly the same thing, at 43 years old, as I used to do when I was 9. 

I was so excited to capture this inspired thought that had come to mind for one my School, and also so eager to get to a Co-Creation Session I was about to do with a client that I hit the door jamb with my shoulder, sparking this muscle memory and triggering all the associated emotions: exhilaration, satisfaction with this moment, eagerness for the moments to come, alignment, joy. 

I was on one, as they say.

And I was wise enough to take a moment right then to jot something down in my journal. 

A micro-revelry. 

A reminder.

A reminder that this moment — this feeling — is *exactly* how I love to feel about work. 

I love to feel like my projects and customers and relationships are a series of gifts that Past Tara has given Now Tara and her Now Customers: a series of moments creating in the flow and moments of creating even more flow. 

Today I invite you to dwell in this possibility right here with me: That you can feel like your work is a gift to yourself and to the people you serve. Frequently. Regularly. Even consistently. 

Whether you know it or not, it is possible to feel so delightedly satisfied with right now and eager about what’s next that you run into stuff trying to get to do whatever it is you do.

First, time for some real talk: You may not feel this way about work right now.

And a little more real talk: I’m not suggesting everyone can or even should desire to joy-trip through every moment of every workday. 

But remember: The reason we’re all here is for freedom, growth and joy.

These are the strategic objectives of the human experience. 

So, if you are not regularly experiencing freedom, growth or joy in connection with your work, your work strategy is ineffective. 

Doesn’t mean you’re not bad or wrong. Doesn’t necessarily even mean your job, company, or line of work are bad or wrong for you.

Realizing your work strategy is spiritually ineffective is no reason for regret, shame, self-judgment or self-critique, nor is it cause to run away and join the circus tonight. 

It’s just an ineffective strategy. That’s all. It’s not creating what you want. 

But it might be a step on the path right into what you want.

See, it turns out that some of our most ineffective strategies for living in freedom, growth and joy — the jobs we take, the way we do them, our habitual relationship and self-management styles, our patterns of hiding, playing small, self-silencing and holding back our best work and best selves from the world — these ineffective strategies can be some of the most valuable strategies, in the long run.

Because they get us clearer and clearer on what will be effective. 

Because they get us closer to fulfillment or clearer on what will get us closer to fulfillment.

And because, along the way, we might even learn something about ourselves.

We learn that full self-expression is how we create our best work. 

We might learn that our sacred purpose in life is not actually to check things off on some cosmic list of achievements.

Or, along the way, we might unlearn a bunch of old, played-out family and cultural conditioning about what success looks like and what work can feel like. We might allow life-zapping scarcity, fears and perfectionism, for example, to dissolve and dissipate. 

And when we do, what remains is the beautiful, fine-tuned, tuned-in core of who you really are and why you really came to the planet in the first place: a new clarity about your purpose and the thick skin, soft heart, relationships, skills and character you need to move into your new season and new projects boldly and unapologetically, finding satisfaction and also eagerness for what’s to come. 

If you’re feeling like your past and present career choices and experiences haven’t been effective at lighting up your next steps into more freedom, growth and joy, I’ve got three things for you:

1. One thing to do: Focus on what is working and what does feel great about your work. Look back at your calendar for last week (or last year, if need be) and revisit what really floated your boat.

• What was joyous? When did you feel in the flow? 
• What moments and meetings felt like you were in the perfect place at the perfect time? 
• What projects felt like you were downloading golden threads of inspiration from some other realm? 
• What were you doing and who were you being when you got your best and brightest ideas, or when you acted on them?
• When you look back at your calendar for the last week or so, what work memories create the feeling Martha Beck calls “shackles off”? 
• What recurring elements, relationships or parts of your work now spark feelings of satisfaction, eagerness, freedom, growth or joy?

Be totally transparent with yourself.

Don’t give into the urge to resist the answers. 

Allow them. Let them be true and okay and be heard, just by you. 

You might be very surprised at what you find.

2. One thing to refrain from doing: Master the natural tendency to fixate, focus and ruminate on what’s not working.

Because what you focus on grows, period and point blank. Even if it’s unwanted: if you fixate on it, you’ll get more of it.

Getting deep into the problem is almost never the platform for receiving, allowing, downloading or experiencing a bolt of clarity as to the solution. 

And it feels shitty, too. 

So. If you’ve got a grudge or a grievance around your work, redirect the urge to play into that habit loop of calling your complaint buddies to chew on that cud again. 

Instead, try this: Write it out. This allows your inner whatever to come up and flow out without being repressed or stuffed down. 

It dissipates the emotional charge of frustration or anger or fear. 

It creates some space into which solution energy and insights can flow. You might get a download to consult with someone else on a solution, but even that kind of conversation will be much more fruitful and uplifting than the grudge-fest sort we call “venting”. 

If you need to vent, vent on your journal pages. Allow yourself to feel what you feel. Investigate your feelings for the gift of insight they might contain, as needed. 

Wipe your emotional windshield clear, in this way.

Then keep it moving.

To paraphrase the brilliant Julia Cameron: Put the drama on the page, then leave the drama on the page.

3. One inspired viewpoint to breathe in: Your life’s work, your best work and your best life are all the same thing. 

My work, my life and my sore shoulders are Exhibit A. 

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Exhibit B, from my dear, old friend Kahlil Gibran. 

Maybe you’ve heard him quoted before, on the point that “work is love made visible.”

But you’ve likely not heard the rest of his take on work. 

I offer it to you now as an invitation to breathe the spirit of love into your work, starting today. 

Starting simply, by ceasing the rehearsal of what’s not working and reveling in what is.

That’s all inspiration is, after all. Breathing spirit in.

From Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet — On Work (1923):

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, 

even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, 

even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, 

even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead 

are standing about you and watching.

It is to write the code or create the marketing campaign or build the business or lead the team as though you are downloading love and possibilities and clarity and transformation directly into your users, even as if your beloved were to use your app or product or work for your company. 

(NOTE: I added that previous paragraph. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ — Tara)

Work is love made visible.

Head up + heart out,

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