Monday Morning Insights

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    If You’re Waiting for Validation Today, You’re Wasting Your Time…

    If You’re Waiting for Validation Today, You’re Wasting Your Time…

    Do you do what you do for people's recognition?  Is it important for you to have people tell you you're doing a good job?  Are you waiting for someone to say 'good job'?  Seth Godin says stop wasting your time.

    Seth writes:

    If you're waiting for a boss or an editor or a colleage to tell you that you do good work, you're handing over too much power to someone who doesn't care nearly as much as you do.

    We spend a lot of time organizing and then waiting for the system to pick us, approve of us and give us permission to do our work.

    If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy.

    Let's face it... we all love to be loved.  We all love to be told we're doing a good job.  But Seth makes a good point.  Most people don't care as much about your job as you do.  And most people won't come up to you and give you a lot of pats on the back.

    But we do, as Seth suggests, organize much of what we do hoping for someone to notice.

    That's funny, at least in our profession.

    Because the person we are doing it for does notice.

    Most of us got in this 'business' not to please others, but to please God.

    And He notices.

    So... if you're waiting around today for your pastor, your supervisor, a church member, or anyone else to tell you that you do a good job, you're really wasting your time.  Get on with your work.  Do your best.  And know that the real Person you're trying to impress is watching.  And noticing. And smiling.

    Todd

    More from Seth here.  Your thoughts?

    Comments

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    1. Jay Cookingham on Mon, June 28, 2010

      Love this post and this thought in particular…

      If you’re waiting for a boss or an editor or a colleage to tell you that you do good work, you’re handing over too much power to someone who doesn’t care nearly as much as you do.

      Awesome…thanks for sharing!
      Jay

    2. Peter Hamm on Tue, June 29, 2010

      I agree.

      But… I’d like to see another post entitled “If you’re waiting until ‘tomorrow’ to validate those whom you treasure, you’re wasting your time.”

    3. champ on Tue, June 29, 2010

      I really agree with this, however I worked at a church where we kept hearing that we shouldn’t worry about letting people know about our work because God sees and will reward us. I still believe that is true, but in this case some of us did a lot of work that no one ever found out about while some ran to the leadership about every move they made. It ended up that those who didn’t talk about their work were looked at as loafers and those that went to leadership with everything were praised, given raises, treated as “favorites” and etc.

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