4 Tips for a Better Workplace
“True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation.
You have to learn to be intense and relaxed. If you can maintain your intensity and relaxation together, all the potential you have will always be used to its fullest.”
—Sadhguru
Whether you are part of the leadership of an organization, or a part of the workforce, the responsibility largely lies within you to create a beautiful workplace around yourself. Here are a few tips from Sadhguru on how we can make that happen.
#1 Stop Working “Hard”
Sadhguru: Right from childhood, nobody told us to study joyfully or work lovingly. People have always told us, “When you study, study hard. When you work, work hard.” People do everything hard, but then end up complaining that life is not easy.
The very nature of the ego is such that it wants to do everything hard because its only concern is to be one step above somebody else. It is a very sad way to live. When that is the whole effort, doing everything hard naturally becomes a source of satisfaction for people. If they do things joyfully, it feels like they haven’t done anything at all.
Isn’t it wonderful when you do many things but you still feel like you haven’t done anything? That is how it should be. You may be working twenty-four hours of the day, but if you still feel like you have not done anything, then you don’t carry the burden of everything upon you. If you carry it all on your head, your capabilities never get full expression and you end up getting blood pressure, diabetes or ulcers.
#2 Go Beyond Competition
Sadhguru: True human capabilities will not find expression in competition. When you are trying to race with somebody, you are only thinking of going one step ahead of him, that’s all. You are not thinking of what your ultimate potential is. True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your mind, your body will work best and find fullest expression, only when you are joyful, peaceful and quiet within yourself. Usually, if you tell people to relax, they become lax. If you ask people to be intense, they become tense. Do you see the difference? You have to learn to be intense and relaxed. If you can maintain your intensity and relaxation together, all the potential you have will always be used to its fullest.
#3 Learn the Art of Volunteering
Sadhguru: When you volunteer, your work is an offering, but at your home or workplace the same work becomes an ugly chore. The work is the same and you are the same but you can make it either miserable or joyful. So whatever you do at the workplace, why don’t you do it as an offering? What’s stopping you?
You must be a volunteer, always. To volunteer means to conduct your life willingly. Right now if you say, “I am a volunteer,” what it means is, “I am doing whatever I am doing willingly.” Yes? So this is a choice you have. You can either conduct your life willingly or unwillingly. If you do it willingly, it becomes a love affair, it becomes your heaven. If you do it unwillingly, it becomes hell. So, being a volunteer does not mean washing dishes at a program or cutting vegetables. It is learning to become willing to all kinds of situations, that you conduct every moment of your life willingly, not unwillingly. Because the moment unwillingness comes, even if the most beautiful thing is happening to you, it feels like you are being trounced by life.
#4 Get the Best Out of Your Co-workers
Sadhguru: If you want any work to be done, whether you are running an industry or a family or anything for that matter, you will always get the best out of people when everybody around you has fallen in love with you in some way. But before they fall in love with you, you must fall in love with them, irrespective of how they are. Only when people love you will they do the best that they can do for you.
