Today I had visited one my key client and 4 of us started discussing our work life with each other. During discussion, all of them gave me one feedback that ‘You are crazy and too much into your work. We receive your mails at 3am, or sometimes 6am…. How do you do that? From where do you get the motivation?’
I always receive similar feedback from most of the people I have worked closely with, be it family, work or my friends. Every time I receive this feedback, I feel good, very energetic and top of it feel very motivated & responsible to do more work. In fact, at times, I get so exhausted at the end of the day, still I push myself to do work at odd hours and the satisfaction I get from this is out of the world.
I am still smiling after doing 14-16 hours of work and just 3-4 hours of sleep and 3 hours of household chores. I am still ready for the next day of work with same enthusiasm and zeal. People at home are worried that I am not taking enough care of my health, but I ignore them and tell them that I am fine. Though at hind sight I know that I am not feeling good, want to sleep and just rest at one place. Still the one in me wants to do more and do not want to leave any opportunity to do good quality work – be it at family or work.
The question that I would always ask myself is – WHY I DO THIS? WHAT I GET OUT OF IT?
The answer to this is – I get immense satisfaction and I feel that I am growing more responsible as a person. I feel I am part of this society, I am part of the family, I am part of the organization – there is a strong reason for me being part of all these communities. There is a purpose behind it and I need to serve the purpose by doing whatever I can do to the best of my abilities.
I can go to any extent to serve the purpose…but the PURPOSE has to be there for me to do things, I need to see the ROLE I and others are playing.
People always feel that I am a highly responsible and accountable person, which I am, no doubt about it however not to the extent that they believe. The responsibility is not actually responsibility in itself, it is more of that purpose fulfilment that gets me going and I do things truly, madly and deeply.
But where does this energy come from and what I play onto? I actually play on to my Strength of CONNECTEDNESS…
individuals talented in connectedness believe that things happen for reason and everything is connected in some larger space. They are sensitive to the world around and things related to it. They are inspired by the belief that they are not alone in the world and understand the responsibility to the world and future generations of human kind.
Whatever I do I need to see that clear picture and feel strong desire that how am I contributing to the larger picture and how am I representing the things around me. Those things that I am attending to are appropriate in nature. That’s the strength of Connectedness…..
The flip side is that I just get into thinking mode too much and sometimes become unable to articulate to others what I am seeing in totality. However having gained knowledge on StrengthsFinder® 2.0 Talent Theme and with much reading on Connectedness, I started connecting dots of my life’s past events in terms of the way I do things, communicate with others, build relation with others etc.
I brought my talent theme of Connectedness to consciousness and started making investments into the talent theme to make it my Strength. The investment I made were in terms of –
- Gaining knowledge on Talent Theme – Connectedness. Its meaning and features.
- Realizing its manifestation in different aspects of my life.
- Exploring what Connectedness means to me…
- Getting the theme in to consciousness i.e. being conscious of the fact that I am playing out of my connectedness talent theme – the How part of the theme.
- Recognizing my needs of being clear of ‘WHY’ am I doing things? Searching the purpose for doing things.
- Learnt the art of questioning to seek clarification from others– WHY and at the same time giving answers to others questions, if there are any.
- Discussing with other individuals who share the same theme and also more about their behavior, feelings etc.
- Taking the feedback from others as to – how do they see me playing out of Connectedness talent theme?
- Being calmer and sincere in my work and trying to see things from bigger picture.
– Ms. Shruti Nayak (Head, Strengths Based Development Programs)
To know more, please contact shruti@namanhr.com
naman 