4 Tips for a Better Workplace
Usually, if you tell people to relax, they become lax. If you ask people to be intense, they become tense. You have to learn to be intense and relaxed. If you can maintain your intensity and relaxation together, all the potential you have will always be used to its fullest.
#1 Stop Working “Hard”
Right from childhood, nobody told us to study joyfully
or work lovingly. People have always told us, “When
you study, study hard. When you work, work hard.” People
do everything hard, but then end up complaining
that life is not easy.
The very nature of the ego is such that it wants to do everything hard because its only concern is to be one step above somebody else. It is a very sad way to live. When that is the whole effort, doing everything hard naturally becomes a source of satisfaction for people. If they do things joyfully, it feels like they haven’t done anything at all.
Isn’t it wonderful when you do many things but you still feel like you haven’t done anything? That is how it should be. You may be working 24 hours of the day, but if you still feel like you have not done anything, then you do not carry the burden of everything upon you. If you carry it all on your head, your capabilities never get full expression and you end up getting blood pressure, diabetes, or ulcers.
#2 Go Beyond Competition
True human capabilities will not find expression in
competition. When you are trying to race with somebody,
you are only thinking of going one step ahead of
him. You are not thinking of what your ultimate potential
is. True human capabilities will find expression only
in absolute relaxation. Your body and mind will work
best and find fullest expression only when you are joyful,
peaceful, and quiet within yourself. Usually, if you
tell people to relax, they become lax. If you ask people to
be intense, they become tense. Do you see the difference?
You have to learn to be intense and relaxed. If you
can maintain your intensity and relaxation together, all
the potential you have will always be used to its fullest.
#3 Learn the Art of Volunteering
When you volunteer, your work is an offering, but
at your home or workplace the same work becomes an
ugly chore. The work is the same and you are the same
but you can make it either miserable or joyful. So whatever
you do at the workplace, why don’t you do it as an
offering? What’s stopping you?
You must be a volunteer, always. To volunteer means to conduct your life willingly. Right now if you say, “I am a volunteer,” what it means is, “I am doing whatever I am doing willingly.” So this is a choice you have. You can either conduct your life willingly or unwillingly. If you do it willingly, it becomes a love affair, it becomes your heaven. If you do it unwillingly, it becomes hell. So, being a volunteer does not mean washing dishes at an event or cutting vegetables. It is learning to become willing to all kinds of situations that you conduct every moment of your life willingly, not unwillingly. Because the moment unwillingness comes, even if the most beautiful thing is happening to you, it feels like you are being trounced by life.
#4 Get the Best Out of Your Co-workers
If you want any work to be done, whether you are
running an industry or a family or anything for that
matter, you will always get the best out of people when
everybody around you has fallen in love with you in
some way. But before they fall in love with you, you
must fall in love with them, irrespective of how they are.
Only when people love you will they do the best that
they can do for you.
| Named one of India’s 50 most influential people, Sadhguru speaks before millions annually around the globe, including to prominent leadership forums such as the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, TED, and the World Peace Congress. From ground-breaking yoga programs to projects for rural communities and the environment, Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation (www.IshaFoundation.org) serves as a thriving model for human empowerment, which is reflected in the Foundation’s special consultative status with the UN. |
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