Contribute

In life as in work, what you put into it you get out. Things aren’t always going to go your way and many times it will feel like you don’t even have a way anymore. The fact is you have a way and it isn’t always smooth. However, if you work at your life and your work based on your principles and standards things will generally work out.

If you asked me today, what this message means to me, I would say a few things…

· Do your job, get the work done, be productive.
· If you see an issue, don’t complain unless you have researched what is causing it and have a suggestion on how to fix it. Whining isn’t going to make the issue go away and someone else shouldn’t have to solve your problems.
· See previous Village posts – Your skills are needed to keep the society you live in moving.

If I have a pet peeve (which I have a few) one of them is people who are passive in life. Everything is happeningto them. While we do not control everything that happens to us, we can control how we respond to it. Helplessness is a mindset. Recognize what is happening, what you need to do to respond and most importantly DO IT. This alone is a tremendous contribution to your own life. If you stretch that into your job and some other areas of your life you would be amazed at the results.

To borrow an overused phrase from Nike “Just Do It.” Contribute to life, by being a part of it. Contribute to the office, first by doing your job and second by contributing to the teams and departments that you are in. In this case, small things truly add up to big results.

A personal example, while not earth shattering, still illustrates the point is my weight loss. Back in 2005 I weighed 175lbs (as much as I weighed 9 months pregnant with my daughter in 2002). I got there through my addiction to sweets and soda. I clearly needed to change something or things were going to get out of hand quickly. I made a decision to change, which was incredibly difficult. I was literally hiding thousands of calories. I hid sweets like an alcoholic hides their booze. First I had to come clean and tell Rob about all the extra money I was spending (that we didn’t have) and just the sheer volume of food that was going between my teeth. Next up move to diet soda and sugar free sweets. This quickly transitioned to a year on weight watchers (WW) online. WW helped me with portion control and weight started coming off.

Next contribution to my life was exercise. I was an athlete, but individual exercise was and is not my gig so I had to devise ways to get myself going. There were fits and starts, but as you see results, your resolve starts to strengthen. About a 8 months in I had to embrace running. I hate running, but let’s face it that is the only exercise that really burns calories and is CHEAP to do. I started small here too, starting with interval running so I never felt like I was running farther than 100yards at a time.

A year and 30 pounds later I felt much better about myself and could do many more activities than before. Have I struggled every day since with sweets and candy? Yes, every day since the day I decided to change. I have bad days, even bad week’s, but knowing what it took to get to this weight keeps me in check.

How am I contributing? Well, by living at a healthier weight and living a healthier lifestyle I am improving my own personal life and leading a good example for my daughter. Now when I tell her to eat her vegetables she can’t say no, since we both are eating it.

While this story doesn’t make you tear up, or make you want to start an exercising regiment I hope you stop to think about what contributions you are making t your own personal life and your work life. Maybe your perspective and attitude just need a little injection of effort to turn things around.