Maybe this is the week you ask a little of your employer. Or a lot!

Mondays come with a sense of dread for a lot of people. Numbers of people haul their hips to a job they hate, and do work that holds little meaning for them for a paycheck that barely pays the bills. I know it’s true because people tell me of their workplace experiences. Over objections, I often ask, “What IF you brought ONE of your personal passions to the workplace?” I get a litany of reasons why it would never work. “Have you tried?” The answer is usually a resigned,  “No.”

For several years I held a job that had no relationship to any of my dreams. Bit by bit I brought my passions, interests and skills to the desk at which I worked daily. By the time I left, I was responsible for creating signage, and coordinated every event and party that occurred in the large facility. I changed the way people got to retire out of positions that they’d faithfully served in for decades.

It took time, perseverance and will to ask for the changes. Sometimes I was told, “No.” Mostly I took that answer to mean, “Not yet.” When I left that position in (gasp, so long ago)1984, I was sorry to go. And they were sorry to see me leave. If I’d never imagined a different way of getting to do my work, I would have been racing to the day that I could leave.

What skill, talent, ability do you have that you love doing when you are NOT at work that could be leveraged into use at your workplace? It might be tempting to think they deserve “that” part of you. Consider that YOU deserve that part of you to be expressed in the course of your hours that you trade for a paycheck. Consider what it would be like to go to sleep Sunday night with a sense of anticipation for going to work the next day.  Consider that. . . maybe this is the week.