Don't Expect Praise For Doing What Is Expected Of You

In life, we all want to be happy. At least that is what i have observed from most people. You hear many ways that you can achieve happiness. Money, recognition, relationships and so on. The common theme with what i mentioned in the previous 3 is that they are all external sources of happiness. The source of happiness is dependent on others or something not in your control. This means that the external sources hold the switches and levers to your happiness in your life. Today, i want to focus on internal happiness. Things that are in your control and that with practice, you will be able to identify and implement. I was inspired to write this blog because when meditating, a thought of my previous jobs came into my mind. Not ideal for when meditating but something good came of it. When reflecting on previous jobs, i re-call many times in my sales roles, my fellow team mates would slave and kill themselves to reach their sales targets. If they failed to reach their sales targets, it was obvious to identify why that resulted in them being unhappy. However, when someone would reach their sales target, in some instances they would not receive recognition or praise for it. When they consistently would not receive praise for doing their job, i noticed something in them. They started to become negative. They started to talk about their bosses behind their back and ultimately their attitude towards their job became very negative. You can imagine that consistently having negative energy would only result in a downward spiral. It occurred to me recently that all they wanted was the recognition. When they didn't hit their targets, they were unhappy and would make excuses about why they didn't but ultimately, if they wanted to keep their jobs, they would try harder the next week to keep their job if they cared about. So when they didn't hit their targets consecutively and finally one week they did, they weren't satisfied. They weren't satisfied because they received no praise and no recognition that after failing 2 or 3 weeks in a row, they finally hit their target the 4th week. So what does that tell you? It told me that their source of happiness wasn't that they were proud of themselves for finally doing what was expected of them, it told me that their source of happiness rested with being recognised for finally achieving what was expected of them. This is a common problem in today's society i believe. Some people always want to be praised and always want to be recognised for what they do. However, the world does not work this way. I believe the root cause for such a problem is that a lot of people are not well prepared for the working world after school. They are not prepared for adversity or difficulties in the real world. Unfortunately in my experience, i realised no one cares about your problems and you won't always get what you want. If this bothers you then you must develop internal mechanisms to keep you going and keep yourself positive. Realistically, when you are employed to do a job, you have an expectation to do what you were employed for. For example, If you're a butcher, you are expected to cut meat. If you are a knife sharpener, you are expected to sharpen knives. In order to develop a mechanism that will keep you positive and happy, whatever your job is, make sure you do it to the best of your ability. Accomplish what is expected of you and take pride in knowing that you did the best job that you could do. Realise quick fast that most places will not reward you for doing what you were employed to do and do not be deterred so easily by not receiving praise. Make your source of happiness internal such as being proud of putting in 110% effort and not external in waiting to be praised for doing your daily job's duties. This blog is for those people that were like me and always wanted to be praised for their work. Whether you're doing it consciously or unconsciously, the sooner you realise that you are doing it, the sooner you can change where you are receiving your satisfaction from and in turn, develop an internal mechanism for positivity, happiness and satisfaction. I tell you all this because i want to see people happy and being satisfied with their lives. I hope this blog helps.