On January 1st, 2021, I had moments of reflection on a few areas of my life that needed auditing and re-alignment, which I hope to share with readers in the next few blogs. One area that I had lots reflections on was the question why I do what I do, I mean my career as a nurse.

You see I reflected on this because, as you I know, our personal journeys, we all seek understanding, meaning, wisdom and knowledge. We want to know why we’re here. We crave for purpose. And for many of us, we navigate life trying to make sense of who we are by distributing our time across things like obligations, work, family and our passions. We’re trying to find ourselves. In other words we are always trying to define why we are in this world and what we love to do for living.

As a nurse with First Nations here in Manitoba Canada, I am very thankful for the many people who I intersect with in my life every day. This people range from the Elders, mums and dads, children and youth, countless helpers (staff), this people enrich my vision, they empower me, they celebrate with me the small steps of daily gains and sometimes we cry together as a family. This is what makes me love what I do.

My journey working as a (helper) nurse with the First Nations has given me beautiful experiences; I feel so much joy when I look into a parent’s or child’s eyes after they have received services they have been waiting for, and there I see the window to their soul through the beaming smile or sigh of relief, this is what makes me smile, and have so much joy serving, and it is what makes my work worthy every opportunity.

You see loving what you do is more than just a career, it is the passion you have in your personal life, it is the meditation space, it is also about self care, it is more– and excelling at it – is the key to personal happiness and career growth. It also gives you the freedom to do what you love, propels you in the direction of higher income, and provides a platform for long-term career development and personal satisfaction. It will absolutely bring you freedom and happiness.

Look at Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with a bunch of other people in his dorm room. Facebook in the early days was not his sole focus. He was working on another company called Wirehog that did file sharing. He didn’t have a driving passion in the early days for photosharing and status updates. But, over time he realized how great Facebook was and he fell in love with the project and its mission to make the world more open and connected.

Remember “Do What You Love” tells some people to go mountain biking or fishing, do yoga, take a nice walk in the woods with their dog, play football or go for a refreshing dip in the ocean. We are physical creatures and we sometimes forget that in the digital age. Our bodies were made to move.

“Do What You Love” tells other people to read a great book, create a delicious meal, get your hands dirty with some gardening or play guitar. These may seem like little things, and they are at the time we are doing them. But for more than twenty years now, we’ve heard folks from all walks of life tell us over and over that regularly doing what they love has an enormous impact on their energy, their self image, their performance at work, their coping skills, the health of their relationships, and their overall happiness.

I am convinced that in our journeys in 2021, we got to find what we love. And that is as true for your career, relationships, personal life and anything we hope to do or become. In 2021, your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and also make fun out of it. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.