Not long ago, there was a gentleman in our NLP course in Singapore who had been doing the same job for 37 years, and he had loathed his job for 36 of those years. While talking to him, other than the paycheque he received, he couldn’t think of anything else beneficial to his job.
Unfortunately, he stayed in this job for so long because of the financial reward. It allowed him to take care of his family, provide a lifestyle he desired and pay for the things he and they desired. However, he had to work so much, for so long, and so hard that he barely had time to enjoy the very things the money was giving him.
He relished the weekends from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. Starting after work on Friday his mood would improve, he would become more positive, powerful, and creative. It was during the weekends (or when on holiday), that he would dream of his future and possibilities and hope. Then, Sunday evening would roll around and his mood changed, his behaviours changed and he went into work mode, which, from his description sounded a lot like angry-depression; he would stay in this mood until it was time again for the weekend. During the week, he had no energy or time or desire to dream or be creative to work toward his real goals and desires.
Part of his desire to learn NLP was to figure out a way to create a new path, in fact, what made his heart sing is the idea of being an NLP Coach and building a Wellness Centre with other Coaches and Allied Health Practitioners. He did gain a roadmap to begin his journey to becoming a coach, but being practical, he knew that it would take a while before he could quit his well-paying job to change career paths. So, an interim goal became to enjoy his job again.
To do this, he first looked at the values of his current role – which he deemed now as a ‘filler-job’. He identified that the financial reward was indeed important, but he also was doing a job he had skills for, that was helping others and working in a team. All things he had dismissed before. He also looked at his emotional states and collapsed anchors that moved him into negative sates, and created new anchors that helped to access positive and resourceful states.
As long as a role is fulfilling your values and a positive or resourceful emotional state is being accessed, then you can fall in love with any job, role, situation, person, place, or thing. NLP helped this gentleman to look forward to going to his filler-job – and he no longer loathed the work or the people or the concept. He knew it was just temporary. Because of this mood and energy shift, during the week he is studying, practicing, and planning for his Coaching Business to take off at the end of the year.
Your mind is amazing – and we are creatures of habit. A good, and bad thing, is that habits are fairly easy to create. When you can get your mindset right, then you can love the work you do and do it well!
