4) 'Work' : How to Change My Work Mindset
(Don’t worry, no ‘F’ bombs dropped here today)
I once saw this fridge magnet type quote which read; ‘I have trouble with four letter words’ and the accompanying words ‘Cook, Wash, Iron, Dust’. All insinuating that housework is a negative thing and therefore all associated words are ‘dirty words’.
I hear that often. ‘If I could pay someone else to do it, I would’, harking back to the time when a woman’s role was in the house and they had to live up to a standard of home cleanliness and order all by drudgery for the sake of appearances.
We now have many mod-cons to make all household chores much easier and still be able to hold down a job and or indulge in more hobbies than ever before. That is, if you can afford all the mod-cons. It’s also no longer only woman’s work.
So surely our attitudes toward housework should have improved by now? I would think so but no. I'd like to talk about 'work' in general. Our attitudes toward work are hugely influenced by entrenched language, rhetoric, jokes, and familial experiences, also by cultural and historic events, traditions and so on.
The BBC just reported that between December 2023 and February 2024, unemployment rose to 4.2%, the highest in 6 months. At that point there were 4.1 million unemployed people in the UK.
I hate that the news report doesn’t separate out the statistics of why people are unemployed. It doesn’t acknowledge that of those unemployed, there are disabled people, those in further study and not looking for work just yet, carers looking after disabled people and unable to work because of it, those who have lost their jobs to no fault of their own and ARE looking for jobs but haven’t yet been successful.
It sounds a familiar report as I remember the same back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. The same conversations go around again and again in parliament and gov. organisations or politicians tasked with changing the situation. It’s like my dog trying to catch her own tail only to get dizzy and bite it.
They’ll come up with the same solutions, just with different names and advertising campaigns. They'll feed the wolf convincing general working folk that all those out of work and unemployed, relying on benefits (or not) are scroungers and have an attitude that work is indeed a four letter word of another sort, mainly because they aren’t feeding the machine. Stereotyping will increase. The jokes will flow. The old TV sitcoms will be revived and those left struggling to find work will be labelled, humiliated and forced into any job even if it doesn’t pay a living wage or isn’t fit for their qualifications, abilities or needs.
WORK is still seen as a negative thing; a necessary evil. Work is to pay bills, keeping ‘fat cats’ fed and poor folk subservient. It’s to keep a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs and feed habits of all sorts...including chocolate, but not much else. Some people are willing to put up with all the above and the work just so they can afford a two week holiday away once a year (some have NEVER had a holiday at all in adult life).
I mean, I could go on and on about all the language around work through history but I want to go in another direction.
So is it any wonder ‘work’ is treated like an ‘F-word’?
Could our attitudes toward the word affect our ideas about its meaning? I believe as I said above, our attitudes can be entrenched behaviours. We might not even believe them if we stopped to think about them. We might realise that just because it’s the way we have always seen it, doesn’t mean that’s the way it actually IS.
2. How can we change our attitudes? By retraining our brains. There are countless YouTube channels dedicated to changing mindset and retraining our brains. I have a few favourites. Challenge your self-talk, your language toward others (especially your family), Decide what you are going to say instead if the learned narratives are negative.
3. What could ‘work’ look like in 2024? Well, it already DOES look very different to pre-2020. Since people were forced to work from home, we have been very creative and harnessing the wonder of working online and content creation. Online entrepreneurship and many more. You are now only limited by your own imagination. Of course some things cost to set up but where there’s a will there’s a way.
As far as my own attitudes toward work go, I would use the word as both a verb (do or create, calculate as in work it out) or a as in this is my piece of work or this work of art demonstrates, a job or employment. I can even say, ‘That is the workmanship of their hands’.
When I’m ‘working’ on my annual review/plans, or a craft item, I’m not feeling it’s a chore or actual work. Because it’s something I WANT to do.
Sometimes when I’m working in my garden, it’s not the most pleasant job but it needs doing and I want to do it for the benefits it brings. That makes it worth the effort. And that’s another thing. Effort...
Effort is placed in the same category of dirty words though not a four letter one. Why? Is there a lack of feeling for the value of work and effort? I think there’s something in that.
For a few decades the most desired lifestyle was that of celebrity footballers. gamers, computer programmers, and celebrity full stop. Nobody wants the mundane or menial jobs. In reality, there is no such thing. ALL work has value.
What would society (or our streets) look like if there were no ‘bin men’ to collect our waste? What if there were no street sweepers? What if there weren’t Postal or delivery workers/drivers? What about those who sweep and clean the buildings we use and collect the trolleys at the supermarkets?
What about the shop workers stacking shelves, till operators and those manning the self-scan checkouts? The council workers keeping our green spaces accessible and tidy, what would out lives and environments look like without them? I’m sure there are many more jobs we can think of that seem unimportant, mundane or of no worth but they are of more value than you think. To me, the most undervalued work is that of a homemaker.
The wages for them should match the wages of plumbers and electricians. That’s how valuable they are.
I love the beer advert where French farmers (especially of the beer ingredients) are heroes in France with the celebrity of footballers. If only that were true, especially of ALL jobs.
But a job is not the only ‘work’ done. To me, the work I do at home and with my family is far more valuable and important than any other job and indeed if I don’t value those, then no other work will ever satisfy or bring happiness.
To work is to create. Whatever we are doing, we are creating. It will be life changing to figure out WHY we are doing it. If we figure that out, it will completely change how we look at work. Instead of thinking ‘I want to do the job I love’, think ‘I want to love the job I do’.
One way to guarantee you will grow to love your work is to remember that whatever job you do, you are serving someone. You are helping someone, even if they don't know or recognise it. It takes you out of a selfish mindset of 'what's in it for me?' and places you in a position of 'how can I help or serve?' I don't mean put yourself at the bottom of the pile but instead, how can you make your job or work, paid or otherwise not just benefit you but others too? THAT will be the 1st way to change your 'work' ideas.
The mindset ideas of
- you get back what you give
- what you look for is all you will see
- where you focus, your attention goes
- you go where you are looking
- giving gets
I try practicing phrases and ideas like;
- I GET to work and MAKE A DIFFERENCE to...
- I love that I am able to...
- I'm grateful that I can...
- I love what I do and it comes so easily to me because I've done it for so long...
- I can CHOOSE what work I do, why and how I do it.
- I can find beauty and value in everything.
- Work keeps me young.
- My mind and body are strengthened and improved by applying effort and enjoying it in all I do.
Don't get me wrong, Some things are NOT pleasant and we aren't meant to have NO trials or discomforts. They do stretch us to our full potential and sometimes we would rather NOT go through some things. But sifting out the things we CAN change and accepting things we can't, helps us focus on what we actually have the opportunity to change...our perception of our reality.
In fact any work you do, will become a hobby instead of a chore. I LOVE homemaking, gardening/homesteading, crafting, writing and working on my reality to make it my dream even though parts of doing those might not be so great. It is WORTH any effort.
What do you value in your 'work', paid or unpaid?, Job, home or community? Are you still inclined to think of them as profane language?
Or are they on the way to becoming your favourite things to do?
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