Not that it’s a particularly bad day, but the overall feeling of Monday is that the workweek has begun, everything that remains from last week must be completed with the utmost urgency because it is now overdue, and who knows what else has popped up over the weekend that will need seemingly immediate attention as soon as you open your inbox.

That is, if your phone, computer, tablet, or watch didn’t already notify you of its urgency.

Monday did not always have this effect on me, just as I’m sure not every person was born with an innate dread of Mondays, but sometime through my working career something shifted. Work became work. 

As I struggled with the concept that my day-to-day was no longer as new and inspiring as it once was when I first started exploring the working world, I tried to search within myself to see if it was simply something to do with my perspective.

In the back of my mind, a simple story whispered to me. It was from a well-read devotional that sits on my bookshelf, Breakfast with God. In this story, a man is checking on a construction project in France in the Middle Ages.

When he approaches a worker and asks him what he’s doing, he’s met with a very abrasive response and a primitive perspective: The worker is toiling away and cutting boulders to put them together a certain way.

When he approaches a second worker and asks the same question, this worker’s response is slightly more positive: The worker is helping to support his family, but only by laboring for someone else’s design

With the last worker, however, the same question is met with a different sort of response —he’s building a cathedral!

Only this last worker could see his place in the grand plan and that his contributions in labor were creating something that would benefit more than just his nuclear (immediate) world. He understood that he was part of a master plan and that the work he was doing held a greater purpose

So how did I view my own work? Let’s just say I wasn’t on the same level as the man who was building a cathedral. I couldn’t see my purpose in work, let alone, in life. And I’m not alone.

People often want work to fulfill them. Life becomes work-centered. It’s a societal norm — not to mention a deeply ingrained mindset — to go to college to get a good job, and then climb the corporate ladder. But, if we don’t succeed, we feel stuck and end up hating our position and questioning why we’re even there.

Work, in spite of our expectations, doesn’t fulfill us. We become so focused on our position, title, and performance that we easily become drained in our attempts to either get to the next level or to stay on top.

But what if I told you we don’t work the way we were intended to? 

In one of my first interviews, my employer-to-be asked me a stupefying question: “What drives you?” What indeed…

Simon Sinek is famous for prompting society to think about their why. If the reason that you get up out of bed in the morning is so you can put food in your family’s mouths and a roof over their heads, that is a very noble reason. But just like the workers in the story mentioned earlier, I would challenge you to consider that there is more to life than the day-to-day tasks to make it function.

As I went on this road of self-discovery, I came to the conclusion that…

Life is not just about work, but work should be about life

…meaning that a life centered around work is missing its purpose and potential.

Instead of work being the focus of your life, let it be a product of your life. 

If you find the real reason of why you get out of bed each day, then work becomes a product of that “why” — you live for something greater than what you alone can produce, and……Mondays may not be so hard anymore.

Life is not just about work, but work should be about life

In this monthly series, we’ll be exploring work/life balance and some hands-on ways to tackle it. Because let’s face it, life is always busy. 

Have you found your “why” yet? I’d love to hear what you have to share so leave me comment below and let’s chat.