What are the things that really matters to you at work? How do you define success at work? Majority of the working people confess to experience a disconnection between having a job and doing what they are really passionate about. Many of these people

For you to feel what really matters it is important that you can clearly determine the how, when, and why of the discovery of finding joy, serenity, and fulfillment in life. Firstly, you must find yourself. Many people already knows what really matters to them but are clouded with daily excuses and conflicting priorities that restricts them from following their lifelong wishes. If you want to find your passion you must let your heart and true calling guide you.

Ask yourself these questions: “What made your greatest work experience so great? What made your worst experience so bad? What is the most important thing missing from your life right now? Who is most important to you? What lesson has served you best throughout your career? What message has been bouncing inside your head for the past year? Who influenced you the most?” (What is Your Life’s Work by Bill Jensen, 60). The answers to these questions are the lessons you learned in your work life. Ponder on them; it will keep you always on track to your passions in life.

You never get back the time you spent to the company. Time is precious and every day you are asked to make thousand of choices that defines who you are. Finding the choices that really matter to you will help you not to waste your precious time in life. So you must choose wisely! Be aware and clear. Know and claim the choices that lead you to your passion.

The things we do at work transforms the way other people view us. Does your work reflect your true personality? Or your everyday choices at work allow you to be true to yourself? If you want to life your life to the fullest, have the courage to be true to your passion and find the job that gives you the opportunity to do it.

Follow your heart and dreams and strive on finding your passion. When you do this, you will experience a transformational leap of knowing yourself and connection to the universe. Each person has a unique final discovery of their passion but it truly determines who you want to be. World-renowned essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson has sum up the things that defines an individual’s success, you might find inspiration thru his words:

Success

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Understanding Your Strengths and Values:

Knowing yourself and feeling confident about yourself helps a lot in finding your passion at work. This begins with accurate understanding of your strengths and values – it’s what makes you feel good about yourself. The process starts by evaluating the factors that molded your personality – family, experiences, education, and trainings. Majority of your strengths and values can be determined even at young age. Some are product of your parents’ upbringing while some are product of unfulfilled needs you try to reinforce as you grow mature. Knowing your top top-five strengths and values gives you a template by which you measure choices in your career and personal life. Being successful at work means you can freely use all of these strengths as well as fulfill your values.

When your act is not reflected with your strengths and values, what do you feel? Useless and powerless? You fail when you find yourself in a work that tells so little about your values, your thought and feelings. When you are in this kind of situation, you feel tied up in a routine that is too far from your own personality. You will usually feel bored and unfulfilled. You don’t look forward to exciting and adventurous days. You feel trapped and always wish for vacations, day-offs and lunch breaks. Regardless of how much money you make, when you deny your thoughts and feelings – your work is difficult and boring.

The best time to determine your strengths and values are when you are honest and direct. By accepting your feelings you reveal so much of your potentials and possibilities in life. It is also important to become proud of yourself. Some people hide their true strengths out of fear of rejection. Your power lies in your uniqueness and powerful people are confident about their self even if it’s about negative or positive one. To find your passion at work you must resist the urge of comparing yourself to others as it limits your choices and career development.

Your hobbies and interests tell so much about your strengths and values. We take pleasures in the things we do such as reading, gardening and traveling. The things you do naturally and effortlessly motivate and empower you. Pleasurable experiences are either academic or non-academic. When you enjoy yourself doing something, your personal strengths are clearly manifested. Remind yourself of the times you feel so happy at work? What are the values and strengths that were so evident from you?

Values change over time but there are some that remains imbedded in our personality. These values reflect what you think is good and worthwhile. Of all human activities, work has the potential of fulfilling your personal values and defines your career choices. When you are true to yourself and passionate with your values you are most likely to find yourself in the work you love and enjoy. Most of your values are evident in the things you do and say. While there are some that comes into the open under certain circumstances.

Now that you have assessed your strengths and values, you already can determine your parameter when looking for new employer or job. Make sure the values and strengths you have are in line with your job or employer. In finding your passion at work it is important to be able to fully share the values and strengths important to you.

At the workplace, an employee must not only deal with the workload but also with the environment, particularly the people you work with. Here, several factors come into play and contribute at producing job stress. Problem people on your job may inclu

Manage Stress and Problem People

Problem people are not just confined to the workplace but in other aspects of everyday life that require you to work together. However, it is more pressing to address this issue at work since the company's productivity is in the line. If you are leading a group of co-employees wherein you need to work at a given task, you have to know what to do in order to manage them properly. Or else, you'd fail to meet the task deadline and end up suffering from high levels of stress. Here are some strategies you can employ:

• Be tough. If you find that some of your co-workers or employees are not pulling their weight, you need to impose authority in order for them to realize the need to provide quality workforce. You can do this by setting standards and work boundaries for employees to live up to. • Communicate assertively. Openly discuss with the people you are working with about each of your responsibilities to a given project or task. If possible, try to approach the matter objectively and free of any emotional leverage. Emphasize your aim to produce an efficient working relationship that results to higher productivity.

About Unreasonable Demands

Most jobs entail their own set of demands. However, there are certain instances wherein unreasonable demands could arise. You need to learn how to identify one against the other in order to know which ones to attend to first. One way to do that is to analyze your job description and what type of work is expected of you by the company. If any demand outside of your work description arises, you need to know how to turn it down while focusing on your job priorities.

This is not to say that you must refuse to attend to real emergencies in the workplace. However, this must not involve just one person but everyone who is concerned. You need to work together in coming up with an effective solution to any of these problems when they arise so you can reduce the level of stress produced by that given situation.

Producing Better Teamwork

If you're serious about reducing job stress, then you need to come up with an efficient checklist system for your team design. This will enable you to raise awareness about issues or problem areas experienced by your team when working on a given project or task. One way to produce better teamwork is to encourage a feedback system. With this, you can remained focus on increasing performance and relieving team stress.

When coming up with a team design, you need to consider the following important factors:

• The number of people in your team. • Do you need to work together? Or, must you perform separate and individual tasks towards a common goal? • Does it require technical skills? • Does it require social skills? • Does your team have all the resources it need? • What is the time frame for working on the project? • How effective is your feedback system?

Proper Team Negotiation

Much of the job stress involved with working on a team project is rooted in your inability to resolve conflicts within the group. Therefore, having proper team negotiation skills will help you conquer the stress. Although neither an aggressive nor a passive approach will help your cause, you need to come up with a solution that is agreeable to both parties and one that will benefit the organization.

Different situations require different manners of negotiation. Therefore, you need to use this point to determine exactly what the source of conflict is. Is it lack of resources or lack of proper communication? Then, you can plan a solution accordingly. Once you have worked out possible solutions for the problem, then you will realize how it can significantly reduce the amount of job stress and you'd achieve a more productive working environment.