What drives you at work?

It’s the weekend. It will end in a blink of an eye and come Monday, we return to the grind at work. What makes the coming work week meaningful? What makes it any different from the previous? What keeps us motivated at work? How do we stay positive amidst the hustle at work?

I would like to hear and learn from anyone what drives you at work, so that I can also take away positive perspectives that will enrich my work life, and life as a whole =)

1 Like

very good question!:+1:
I have asked myself that same thing many a times - especially on finding a day with many adverse issues happening in the office.

Something that has helped me a bit is to view the workplace as an environment for me to practise Buddhism teachings. The human interaction presents opportunities to use our learnings (闻), contemplate why things are happening (思) and apply (hopefully) the right actions (修)so as to get better outcomes.

1 Like

I try to start my day taking refuge with the triple gems, follow by the bodhisattva vow. To prevent myself from going through the daily actions as a routine without much thoughts, I try to visualise the events that may unfold for the day, and remind myself how I should go about approaching it.

During my drive to work, I will usually listen to some discourse and review how I could apply some of these teachings to better tackle the issues faced previously. While I am eager to apply the teachings with enthusiasm, I do realise I do not contemplate deep enough on the issues to find out the root cause, hence just “patching” on the problems. :sweat_smile:
#常败将军

2 Likes

What motivated me to work even till midnight in a joyous mood

  1. My faith in the Triple Gems, my Guru who has always been around wuth me.
  2. I have found my value in.life for a good cause.
  3. The values in life made those people around me happy too.
  4. Ability to see the shortcomings to turn into favourable conditions.
  5. More positive.
  6. Good virtuous friends, staff, volunteers who are there to help.
  7. Good Mentor
  8. Great Boss and great teachings who helped to lead and turn my bad views to.positive energy in.executing my tasks we with the main.aim of helping others.
1 Like

Wow! So much to learn from everyone here!

For me, I will visualise how I can “earn” virtuous deeds for my “Bank of Buddha’s Account”…
I use my day-to-day work & interactions with staff & customers to accumulate my merits!

Here are just some examples:

  • Passing customers who are going thru rough patch buddhism books like YOU & YOUR PROBLEMS: http://ftp.budaedu.org/ebooks/pdf/EN177.pdf
  • Advocating pregnant mummies on the importance of pre-natal education & passing them a copy of 弟子规 Standards for Being a Good Student and Child which they can recite to their unborn child.
  • Subsidizing low income customers with severe acne problems with highly subsidized facial treatments in order to improve their self-esteem
  • Set aside X% of each package signed by customers to be allocated in my company’s charity fund & will dedicate the merits to them
  • Set up a recycling corner where we keep recyclable items such as empty glass / plastic bottles / boxes from our beauty supplies & I will dispose them into recycling bin instead

On a general level,

  • I educate all my staff, as long as we make every customer looks more beautiful/ make them happier, we are considered doing a good deed.
  • If those who are more spiritual-inclined, I will personally use this chance to share buddhism concepts & invite them to study lamrim if they are keen

So this is how I motivate myself at work & I hopefully I can hear $$$ “ke-ching” $$$ in my “Bank of Buddha” every day from the little effort put in. :money_mouth_face:

1 Like

The need to balance my actions with the dharma teachings of mindfulness, compassion and wisdom. This is after learning about karma from the Lamrim.

Otherwise previously it’s just he $$$ “ke-ching”$$$ and the hunger to climb up the corporate ladder. :sweat_smile:

1 Like

An appreciative boss, friendly colleagues, a work culture that frowns upon politics and gossips. These factors are rare in the working world but helps to boost my morale at work and will drive me to give my best performance for the company.

1 Like

you mean motivation?
personal development+build different skills set+getting out of comfort zone within ownself cope-able capacity at different phases. why? as scared the mind will be idle and start to grow “grass”. of course some $ along the ways.
at some point later, share these learnings/insights to others (not necessarily determined by age)

Sharing this video showing how a business person discarded the bad practices (with negative karma) he had in his work and changed for the better

His awareness came from learning the Lamrim and following Master Ri-Chang’s teachings.

My takeaway here that the workplace can be seen as a place to do good and practice Buddhism - a worthwhile motivation to go to work everyday :smile: