From job crafting to life crafting

I can check another item off my bucket list: leading a workshop at a staff retreat! (Old readers may remember when my dream of leading workshops at a youth retreat came true.) And what’s even better is that I just found out that the audience will be a mixed group of professionals and young adults, which is really my ideal teaching scenario. I firmly believe that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, since one of the challenges of youth development—particularly in programs where we are asking our young people to dream big and stretch beyond their comfort zones—is when adults cannot be fully supportive of the grand vision young people have of themselves. Many of us in this profession are caught up with meeting deadlines, putting out fires, and keeping things afloat. Sometimes there’s just no way around that. But it’s dangerous when we lose sight of the bigger vision of their lives—and of ours, quite frankly.

This is precisely why I am so excited to facilitate a workshop at this year’s Red Hook Initiative staff retreat. The request was for programming that would help staff members and their young people understand their talents and interests more deeply so they can build the careers of their dreams, starting with the jobs they are currently in. It’s a tall order for 20-30 people in a two-hour time frame. I’m stitching together Work On Purpose’s Heart + Head = Hustle workshop with a brief introduction to job crafting, and seeing how far we get.

My intention is that each participant walk away with:

• a “hustle” (the unique contribution you offer the world, based on your gifts and passions);
• an empowered understanding of the process of job crafting; and
• next steps via job crafting to bridge their current work situation to their “hustle.”

The deeper hope is that participants come to appreciate the power we all possess to chase our dreams by making even the smallest changes in our lives. I’m convinced that if we all showed up for ourselves just a little differently at our current place of work, this cannot but bleed over into how we show up for ourselves in other areas of our lives. The questions are the same: Am I doing something that brings greater joy into my life and the world? If not, what can I do differently? For there is always something we can do differently, be it a shift in how we spend our time, how we relate to others, or how we understand our situation in life or place in the world.

I think it will be a powerful experience for staff members to undergo the very same exploratory process as their young adults, and it will also be useful for RHI’s young people to get a fuller vision of some of the caring adults in their lives. I’m really looking forward to basking in the energy that comes out of this process!