The way we work and why it matters

Let me ask you a question...which is more important: the job you do or the way you do it?

In my final year of university, I was 95% sure that wasn't going to be a physio once I graduated (ha!) and I decided that I was going to make every effort to just enjoy that year. The previous few years, I had worked ridiculously hard. I had studied for exams weeks in advance, I had handed in assignments early, I had sacrificed social events to get work done and I was over it. So, I decided that I wasn't going to strive for great marks any more, because, as long as I passed, did it really even matter?

The problem, I discovered, was that, the way I worked seemed to be engrained into me. I couldn't not do it. Maybe I eased off a little, had a bit more of a social life, but I still worked, I still studied. I didn't want to put my name to anything that I thought I could have done more on.

Through school, uni, work, rugby, I have seen a vast variety of work ethics. On one side are the people who get up at 5:30 to train or study and never complain about it. On the other, people who put in the bare minimum and spend most of their time being negative about their job, their co-workers, their boss.

I am the most guilty of this at times, and I've been challenged about that lately.

I can point out the things that are wrong and make excuses for my attitude: I'm stuck being a physio when I really want to be a writer, other people have it easier, I have to listen to people complain all day, I have to stand in the rain for a rugby match...but good work ethic has little to do with your position and everything to do with your perspective.

What is it it that makes a good work ethic; how can you tell the difference between someone who has a strong work ethic and someone who doesn't have one at all? I think there are many factors: integrity

honesty

commitment

responsibility

initiative reliability

discipline

respect

cooperation

Over the years that I've worked with rugby teams, the variations in work ethics have been blatantly obvious. I see the boys who show up to training early, who respect the coaches (no matter who is listening), who take the responsibility for their injuries (and show up on time to their physio appointments!), who actively seek feedback and learn from criticism, who are in it for the team. And then I see the ones who hang around the changing sheds until the last moment before they have to go out to train, who come to me two minutes before kick off and tell me they've had a sore shoulder all week, who train at half the effort after being told they're on the bench this week, who blame the coaches when they've played a bad game, who never put in the extras and who only put in what is required when someone is watching.

And I've seen that 90% of the time, work ethic is a key determinant for success.

I'm not saying that you have to work yourself into the ground. That's not ok. When you look up people who show examples of great work ethic, you find a whole lot of stories of people who work 100 hour weeks, who never take time off (even on the weekends), who haven't had holidays for 7 years. But I actually don't think that is admirable, because I think that, part of a good work ethic involves taking responsibility for looking after yourself. Working crazy amounts of hours is simply not healthy.

A few years ago, I was training to run a half marathon. You would think, being a physio, I would be sensible about it, but no. I ran every day, pushing myself. A couple of months into training, I started to get pain in my shin. Usually though, if I could get through the first five minutes of my run, it would go away...until I stopped and could barely walk. But I convinced myself that, since I could run through it, it didn't matter how sore I was after. Until I realised that I couldn't walk down one step on a good day. I eventually got it checked out, discovered a stress fracture and had to give up the running for 8 weeks. Pushing too hard rarely leads to success.

To finish off, I want to share one of my favourite quotes, said by Martin Luther King Jr.:

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

Whatever your job, whatever you do in life, do it well.