February thoughts from Dr. Nathanson
Do you want to have a vacation for the rest of your life?
JUST have joyful work!
With joyful work, you can’t tell the difference between Monday or Friday, Work or Play, and vocation or vacation!
Joyful Work is subjective.
The best way to understand if someone enjoys their Work is to ask them! And be prepared as a leader to enable them to enjoy more of their Work or make any needed changes if the response is negative.
The Humanistic leader seeks compromise.
The humanistic leader seeks peace over conflict, collaboration over competition, empathy over disregard, people over profit, inclusion, appreciation over exclusion, listening over being closed-minded, helpfulness over disagreement, and generosity over greed.
We are at a critical and urgent moment in history that to be sustainable and survive there should be no alternative acceptable other than humanistic leadership.
We need to work together as a system to avoid an unstable and non-sustainable world.
The Ten P model (Permission)
The final P, Permission, is the most difficult yet the most needed.
It is essential to permit ourselves to follow our hearts in our work and the rest of our lives. This permission includes allowing ourselves to be the person we want to be, choose those we want to be with, the work we most want to do, and how we want to live our lives.
Otherwise, we wait, hoping for luck to pass our way.
Permitting ourselves is both empowering and the path toward an authentic life.
I am cheering for you each step of the way down this path.
What does YOUR perfect vocational day look like for you?
Have you ever thought about what your perfect work would be?
How about a typical workday pattern for the rest of your life?
What daily routine would excite you and bring joy and happiness to your work?
What’s perfect for me?
You must keep asking yourself this question because no one else will do it. Be careful as you design your perfect vocational day because you will start moving towards it. Make sure you know just what YOU want.
And, if you are over forty, a crisis will hit. And when it does, you will have a new sense of urgency about your life and what to do with it. Your work and what you DO daily is a great place to start.
I’ll be cheering you on as you go.
The Ten P Model (Purpose)
I developed the Ten P model in 2001, as one process for reflection, toward building a roadmap for one’s life and path to joyful work.
Later in 2015, I incorporated this model into the latest Joyful Work Model.
The Ten P model starts with purpose.
If you had to answer this question, what is my life’s purpose?
What would you say? Start thinking about where your energy is right NOW and where you want to contribute to the world.
Planting the seed with purpose will grow new ideas and possibilities for you later.
The Five Stages Model ( Stage 5- The new beginning)
As one successfully moves through positive change, especially when it comes to finding authentic and joyful work, life and everyone around suddenly looks better again; even those relatives you do not enjoy seeing 🙂 I have never seen a person reach a new beginning and state; this is ok, but I would instead go back to the treadmill!
So, I encourage you to push through change with both feet forward, despite how challenging or painful it will seem.
The new beginning will be worth it for you and all of those around you, including your relatives 🙂
The most important thing a humanistic leader can do
The most important thing a humanistic leader can do is show that they value other people and their work.
As always, I’ll be cheering you on as you go!
Dr .Nathanson- February, 2023