4 Tips for a Happier, More Effective Workplace

In the excerpt below, world-renowned yogi, Sadhguru, offers insights on how simple shifts in your perspective and approach to your work life can make a big difference in both the experience of your job and quality of the work that you do. Sadhguru is the founder of the Isha Institute of Inner-sciences, a destination for classical yoga and meditation retreats in McMinnville, TN.

photo Sadhguru

#1 Stop Working "Hard"

"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 24-hours of the day, but if you still feel like you have not done anything, then you do not 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 high blood pressure, diabetes or ulcers."

#2 Go Beyond Competition

"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. You are not thinking of what your ultimate potential is. True human capabilities will find expression only in absolute relaxation. Your body and mind 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

"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.' 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 an event 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

"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."

Sadhguru is a world-renowned yogi and the founder of Isha Foundation, a nonprofit public service organization offering the benefits of classical yoga to over 7 million people over the last 35 years. The Isha Institute of Inner-sciences is a world class destination for classical yoga and meditation situated ~1hr from Chattanooga in Tennessee's spectacular Upper Cumberland. The Isha Institute features two distinctive meditation halls offering over 50,000 square feet of tranquil, vibrant space dedicated especially for yoga and meditation.

To bring wellbeing to the local community, Isha Institute hosts Free Yoga Day each month, offering free, family-friendly yoga sessions throughout the day, as well as tours, hiking, biking, and vegetarian cooking classes. The Institute also offers a full range of yoga and meditation programs from beginner to advanced levels. For more information on events and programs, visit www.IshaUSA.org.

Noteworthy:

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.- Sadhguru

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For more information on events and programs, visit www.IshaUSA.org.

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