Bringing Your Best Self to Work: What Does It Mean and How Can You Do It?

What do you mean by bringing your best self to work? Unfortunately, with several competing priorities in the workplace, you sometimes lose the actions that may help you be the best you can be for yourself, your clients, and your colleagues. Let’s find out what it means and how you can bring your best self to work.

What Does It Mean to Bring Your Best Self to Work?

Newton’s law of motion teaches us that an object in motion stays in motion unless force is applied. This law applies to each of us as well. If you want to find your passion, you must put passion into your actions. If you’re going to have more energy, you have to move more. As energy creates energy, passion creates passion. Everybody wants positive, energetic people around them, especially at work where you spend eight hours a day and even more. At times you see your colleagues more than your parents or spouse.

When you look around you, your team, colleagues, and bosses, certain people make you feel that life is far from boring when they enter the room. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are the life of the party. It’s more like they are full of life. They reap what they have sown. Those around them respond to their positive attitude and are paying it forward in their way. Such people arrive at the workplace in the morning, ready to conquer obstacles and succeed. They are willing to cover that extra mile to break through the glass and bring innovation with what they have.

These people are bringing their best selves to work!

All people at work feed on each other’s energy, and it is great to see everyone embracing it in their way. However, this is not something you can switch on as you walk in the door. It takes more than just having a smiling face. What you do outside your workplace determines the true attitude you will bring to it. Perhaps most of you focus on excelling at your work, but you sometimes forget that whatever you do beyond work and on the weekends is a prime marker of your success. Bringing your best self to work includes investing in yourself, being mindful of what you make up for your time, and having fun in whatever you do.

Friend. Star. Director. Creator. Searcher. Which one are you?

What if you get a chance to listen to your eulogy when you are still there? What do people appreciate about you the most? So, take time to think about what you are like when you are at your best and having the best effect on everybody else. While doing this, part of your brain lights up, producing zest and enthusiasm.

Anyone who can work in an office can tell you which work personas you fall into based on your personality, job description, and skill set. Though having a certain workplace niche might be comfortable, staying stuck in your comfort zone can hinder your professional growth. Also, they can negatively impact your wallet as well. On the other hand, when you align some personality traits with the job you desire could mean extra earning power. When it comes to success in the workplace, your personality matters a lot. It is not enough to manifest new traits. You must be bold to show them.

To understand and change your persona at the workplace, you must first know what it is. Think about how you behave at work usually and then look at these typical personas. You are likely to identify with more than one, but find out which one you fit best.

The Friend enjoys connecting and networking with others. Building solid relationships is its strength, and the main challenge is to balance work and play.
The Star aims to be recognized for its success in its career. They meet deadlines and deliver high-quality work. The main thing they struggle at perfectionist tendencies.
The Director thrives and flourishes in leadership positions. They have the quality to manage people as well as various tasks. But they also struggle when it comes to delegating tasks.
The Creator is driven by innovation and creativity. They can find solutions to problems at any time. But the everyday task can easily bore them.
The Searcher gets motivated by the desire to make a difference. Searchers have the drive to progress forward and help others.

How to Bring Your Best Self to Work?

Here we are talking bout How to Bringing Your Best Self to Work?

Be Authentic

The basis of bringing your best self to work is authenticity. It is about showing up honestly with vulnerability and without self-righteousness. Undoubtedly it takes courage to be authentic, and it is essential for growth, trust, and connection. You can do certain simple things to be more authentic at work, like admitting wherever you are wrong, not knowing something, or asking for help in a polite, genuine way. All of these need courage and require you to embrace and let go of your need to be correct.

Studies have shown that more authentic leaders engage in constructive, active conflict behaviours, admitting their part in creating conflict or widening the lens to consider alternate viewpoints. Being authentic is imperative to resolve conflict at work positively and productively. In addition, it has been tied to less burnout as it helps you deal with jobs involving emotional labour more easily.

You can also check out our other related article What is Self-disclosure in the workplace?

Focus on Emotional Intelligence

EQ or emotional intelligence is about having self-awareness and being able to handle your emotions. Besides, it is also about being socially aware of yourself and managing relationships. Emotional intelligence is more important for success than your IQ, experience, and professional skills. Employers value emotional intelligence more than other job skills. Moreover, it is important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the antonym of intelligence. It is not the victory of the heart over the head. Simply it is the unique intersection of both.

A greater emotional intelligence quotient can help prevent burnout from a job and improve performance on some tasks. The most excellent way to build emotional intelligence is to cultivate regular heedfulness. Take some time to pause, breathe and centre yourself regularly, allowing you to be more aware and manage your emotions more effectively. Also, mindfulness leads to more understanding and compassion for others, which helps you manage your relationships successfully.

Engage in Self-Reflection

The most important values-based leadership tool is self-reflection. It is the intentional practice of taking time almost daily to step back and see inward to have clarity on your priorities and values. You can identify whatever matters to you the most through self-reflection. Also, recognize what gives you more confidence in your decision-making. Otherwise, you will move from one activity to another and from crisis to crisis without making any sense of purpose or direction. Like everyone, when you get off track at times, self-reflection will bring you back to the centre and help you steer the challenges you are facing.

Moreover, self-reflection can counteract stress, pressure, anxiety, fear, and worry by first throwing light on what you are feeling and staying grounded in reality.

Look for Learning Opportunities

Learning should always be a top priority in your day-to-day activities. Every day, set aside 10 minutes to read, listen to, or watch anything that will help you work better. You may try to learn a new skill once a month or check if your coworkers can teach you something. For example, if you see a coworker with a strong work ethic who completes tasks quickly, speak with them and learn from their practices.

Embrace a Mindset of Growth

It means approaching your life and work with the intent to understand that you can improve anything if you are willing to practice, work hard and dedicate yourself. It is about looking at everything you experience, including your challenges, as opportunities for learning and growth. There is a vast difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, where the belief is that a person is born with innate gifts, whether they have them or not, and this cannot be changed.

People with a growth mindset are more likely to have a sense of commitment to their organization and support risk-taking than their fixed-mindset peers. When you try new things, especially the ones that push you out of your comfort zone and scare you, it’s an incredible way to practice having a growth mindset.

Turn Weaknesses into Strengths

Most people can identify a career-limiting habit readily. Besides, managers of the organizations have reported that only ten per cent of employees showed a change a year after a performance review. Most of you assess your weaknesses but do not always take steps to correct your career-limiting behaviours. It would help if you changed the behaviour by following the points given below:

Recognize and pay attention to anxious moments. When you’re dreading giving a big presentation at work and continually checking your email, you’re not only being distracted but also acting out a habitual anxiety and stress reaction.
Stay with it if you find yourself in this situation. Substitute a purposeful, well-thought-out alternate action for the ineffective behaviour. To allow yourself time to breathe, drink a glass of water.
Then consider what you might be able to do instead. “What do I actually want now?” you might wonder. And think about how you’re going to get there.

Avoid Distraction

When working in front of a computer, the average person is distracted or disturbed every 40 seconds. We can’t work for more than a minute without being interrupted! Find simple techniques to overcome everyday self-sabotaging behaviours to improve your professional performance.

If you’re having trouble organizing data, take a break from your work and go for a stroll. Alternately, move to a new location. Similarly, face down your phone to avoid being distracted by continual notifications. Finally, make time for solitude throughout your workday to avoid feeling worried or overwhelmed by little setbacks.

Make the Most of the Appreciation Power

Showing gratitude is necessary for making amazing connections, strengthening teams, and keeping negative events in perspective. It’s not the same as expressing thanks, though. Sometimes you mix the two up, particularly in professional settings. However, recognition is based on performance or outcomes, what people produce or do, while appreciation is based on who they are or people’s inherent worth.

You want to do everything you can to appropriately recognize positive outcomes such as sales, implemented ideas, and completed projects. But there is a breathing human being behind every achievement or failure. Regardless of the outcome, appreciation is about emphasizing your gratitude for people’s efforts and the human characteristics and qualities they possess that you value, such as kindness, humility, or humour. It’s something you can say whenever you want. Gratitude is a close relative of appreciation. It can transform workplaces. In addition, it also brings employees greater happiness, job satisfaction, health benefits, and better relationships with coworkers.

To Conclude

Bringing your best self to work means approaching your job with a sense of playfulness and being fully aware of your own and others’ flawed humanness. It entails a willingness to stand out. There is no single model for what authenticity in the workplace should look like. On the other hand, authenticity allows you to be vulnerable, inquiring, and deliberate in your own way. You become your bravest and boldest selves at work when you take advantage of this opportunity. You develop and adapt in tandem with your organizations.

When the actions mentioned above – speaking up, taking chances, and accepting responsibility are modelled and encouraged, especially by individuals in leadership positions, the team and the environment become as psychologically safe as possible. On the surface, these notions appear to be very simple. However, similar to several important aspects of growth, business, and life, it is not their understanding that creates a difference. It is their application.

Source: https://www.theblacksheep.community/bringing-your-best-self-to-work/

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