Happier You: Work as Flow

I can't believe March is already here!! Holy smokes this semester is really flying by. Anyways, today I'm sharing with you all Happier You's March Goals and that is work as flow. When thinking about my happiness project, work can often be a huge source of unhappiness and frustration. For a lot of people, work is just a means to an end. Many individuals don't find joy in their jobs, which is a true tragedy. Now, I don't know if I have found the job that will always bring me endless joy. Actually, my job on numerous occasions gives me the direct opposite of joy. Nothing breaks my heart more than one of my students not living up to their potential or a staff member who has had a rough day. However, as long as I wake up every day feeling like I am making a difference in the students' lives I work with... then every day I will wake up as a student affairs practitioner.

As I said earlier, March's goal is to develop work as flow a term from psychology of optimal experiences by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I know quite the name). Now, I recognize that I won't be able to achieve this in one month... some people don't even achieve this in a lifetime. But, inspired by Csikszentmihalyi's work I will be working on finding happiness in my job.

So, here are my March Goals:

my competencies... There are 10 Competencies that NASPA has created for student affairs professionals (check them out here). My goal is to evaluate how I am currently doing on them. After I evaluate how I've done, I then hope to create a game plan for how I can grow as a professional in these competencies. Luckily, I have amazing co-workers and supervisors who can help hold me accountable and can give me insight into areas that I can develop in (so, bring on the feedback).

work life balance... hahaha February was not the most ideal month for work life balance. I think I went to the gym three times total (don't worry I walked a lot and did work out videos in my apartment-- I'm still sticking to my healthy goals from January). But, I couldn't even find an hour in my day to work out and practice self-care... Now, that's bad. I love my job, but in March my goals is to find more work life balance and still do it all!

I laughed A LOT at this meme. Add blogging and you have one crazy RD. 

get out of the office... I want to get out of my office and actually engage with my students. I feel like I have been chained to my desk and I'm missing all of the student interactions that I had when I was an RA. So, I am hoping to measure this goal by sitting in the lobby and quizzing myself on knowing residents on a first name basis and maybe some facts.

student development... is pretty much the whole reason I do what I do. However, I still don't know that much about student development and theories. I haven't taken the College Student Personnel theories class yet, so I think its time I learn some stuff on my own. My goal is to learn about three new theories and start incorporating it into my work.

make someone's day... should be my goal every day! But, this month my goal is to make either my student's, staff member's, or co-worker's days! Now, I'm not sure exactly how I will measure this (unless they tell me). But, I will still make do!

So, those are my five goals for March! Wish me luck as I discover work as flow (or try to at least).