Most people want to make progress in their careers and see success. Most people, regardless of their job or role, want to matter and do work that matters. 

But showing up every day and getting it done, while a good place to start, isn’t enough. 

If the work you do isn’t very special, you won’t get noticed. 

So, if you want to make career progress, see more success, and matter more, you have a to make a commitment. You have to, right now, make a commitment that you will never again do work that is “good enough” or “okay.” You have to, right this minute, make a commitment to pursue better every day on every shift with every task/job/interaction and every product/service/person.

Turning what you do from a “job” into a meaningful profession starts inside you. It begins with everything you do and every behavior you practice.

Victor Frankl, the great psychologist and Nazi concentration camp survivor, said that you can take everything from people except for one thing, the freedom to choose their attitude, to choose their own way no matter the set of circumstances or obstacles before them. 

What does this mean? It means you can choose any attitude you want to take to work today. You can choose “half assed” or “good enough” or “I’ll only be great when they pay me more,” or, you can choose something different. You can choose to be a master of your craft. You can choose to make whatever you do a unique expression of you. You can choose to matter by making others matter.

So here’s some motivation: What do you want on your tombstone? 

a) Here lies (You), they could’ve been somebody.

…or…

b) Here lies (You), they did amazing work that helped people and improved their lives.

Morbid to think about? Maybe. 

A kick in the pants to step up and be better than you ever thought you could be? Hell yes!

Mahatma Gandhi said it best, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a [person] changes [their] own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards [them].”

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