A few years ago, I read the book titled “Fish!” by Stephen C. Lundin et al. In the book, the author clearly spelt out how to make work more enjoyable, productive and interesting. There are a great many people who are not satisfied with their job for one reason or another. They either complain that the job is too stressful or that the pay is commensurately too small. In other situations, you might find that your passion does not align with the job.
A great quote that I love so much reads as follows, “You have to love what you do even if you are not doing what you love”. This is important because you don’t deserve to have your happiness compromised because you are currently not doing what you desire the most. Happiness increases your productivity and makes you derive more satisfaction from your life. This gives you the enthusiasm to keep pressing until you find what you truly love. Let me add that happiness is contagious. This, you will soon find out how here.
Stephen Lundin et al were very emphatic about the four things that make you enjoy your work to the extent I couldn’t drop the book until I got to the end. These points included the following:
- Choose your Attitude
- Learn to Play as You Work
- Make your Customers’ Day
- Be Present
These four approaches are tested and trusted strategies on how to build a productive and interesting workplace for you and your customers.
1. Choose Your Attitude
Stephen Lundin, in his book, used menial workers and traders to illustrate this idea of choosing your attitude. However, the information he provided can be extrapolated to other professional and non-professional jobs you may be involved in.
Our jobs directly or indirectly affect the people around us, both far and near. Your attitude is therefore the most important factor in having a more productive day at work. Your attitude here refers to your moods, general demeanour, physical expression and your display of enthusiasm in the job.
You can choose to have a cheerful attitude or a depressed one. By choosing to cheerful attitude, you make the job interesting for both you and your customers. Though you might have some reasons to put on a depressed attitude, you must know that your customers or clients will not see or understand those reasons with you. So you must choose to appear lively and happy, at least, during your stay at work.
It is important to know that before your skills and expertise begin to show, your attitude first goes before you.
2. Play as You Work
In Lundin’s book, he portrayed fish sellers who played while they worked. It was an exhilarating experience, I thought, both for the fish sellers and for the customers who watched them play. In the story, every one of them was counted as a part of the work-play group.
From the point of getting the fish from the cold store to the point when it gets to the customers’ hands involved a series of plays, singing and dancing. This engaged and entertained their customers who had become glued to the show each morning.
Fish trade, you would agree, is one of the most boring jobs anyone could ever do but these fish sellers were different. They turned it into one of the most interesting, productive and profitable businesses as illustrated in Lundin’s book. They cooled off their worries as well as provided pleasure to their customers. This also makes their customers always go to them whenever they needed to get what they offered for sales. Read Here On 10 Ways to Make Your Customers Stay.
3. Make your Customer’s Day
You really cannot do something nice to your customers if you are first not happy with what you do. By making their day, you give them a reason to be happy or thankful for that day. Sooner or later, you will discover that their joy infuses some amount of strength and encouragement into you; when they tell you, “You made my day”.
4. Be Present with Them
After rounds of fruitless questioning, I became tired of asking the seller “how much is this item?” The saleswoman was busy discussing with a fellow at the expense of my satisfaction as a customer. But, I quickly figured out what I’d do the next time I need to buy something around there. I’d just walk right straight the street until I find the next shop.
Every customer desires to be satisfied with the services you render. They want to feel happy as they walk out of your shop or service station. This creates a stronger bond between you and the customer and makes work more interesting, productive and profitable.
By being present, you listen to them and respond to their questions about the products you offer. You have to show them that everything about them is important and matters. You should make their seemingly unimportant remarks and questions important as far as your work is concerned. Within a few weeks or moments, after they notice how much you are present with them, boom! they get all over you increasing your patronage. Read Here On Being Present With Your Customers.
Final words
Even if you are not satisfied with your job, you must remember that you cannot afford to live a sad life all throughout your working life. Happiness not only guarantees your success, but it also improves your health and vitality.
Instead of reacting sadly to your job situation, why not stay happy and work towards where you wish to be? Interestingly, when you react positively and happily to your present job, even if it might not be the best you ever wanted, you become more productive and stand a chance of being honoured as a great employee if you are an employee.
Just like any other activities out there, instead of getting depressed because of your job, start working out ways to get closer to what you desire. Still, those are Lundin’s four things to make your work productive and interesting.
Thank God i like play, lol.
It was nice