When you think about your work, what is the first emotion that surfaces?

Dread? Fulfillment? Boredom? Joy?

For most of us, the time we spend at work fills more than half of our lives. We may spend time and energy thinking about our jobs – hoping for a new one, thinking about a promotion, complaining about a bad boss or an annoying client.

But how often do you step out of the day-to-day and think about your work at a higher level?

Those of us that are entrepreneurs have likely spent more time on the big picture because we have no choice, we have to plan our work at a strategic level in order to survive and grow our businesses.

Stepping back and looking at our relationship with our work is a way to get at the heart of what brings us joy and fulfilment in our lives, even if we aren’t getting those things from our work today.

Getting clear on what makes us happy is the first step to crafting the life we want. Once we know, we can begin to plan, dream, explore, and ultimately take action to build our ideal life.

Consider the following questions about your work.

The goal is to end up with a list of the elements that make work joyful for you, then explore how you can bring more of that into your life.

• What things are you most proud of that you have already accomplished in your work?
• What made it rewarding for you to accomplish these things?
• What have you struggled with the most in accomplishing what you want in your work?
• What frustrates you, or feels like it stands in your way of having the impact you want to have at work?
• Reading over your answers, are there key themes or words that repeat themselves?
• How can you bring more of the things you love into your work?