Here’s a keener breakdown of your Wonder @ Work results.
Challenges and Meaningful Work:
It’s possible that you often feel as if you’re languishing in life and work. You might feel as if you’re chasing deadlines and ticking off to-do’s with little sense of purpose.
Your days seem full of reacting to one problem after another.
If any of that resonates, don’t punish yourself. Times have been hard on most people, especially since February 2020.
Even without a pandemic, we’re wired to react to sudden surprise, and it might be a good sign if you’re facing challenges.
Our research points to some valuable discoveries. One, most fulfilled people who flourish over the long term regularly face challenges, big and small. Prolific documentarian Ken Burns says, “Every film brings with it hundreds of problems.” They know this fact: Every big idea begets a series of challenges.
So what’s the difference between those people who flounder and those people who flourish amidst challenges? In part, it’s their capacity to experience wonder. It’s their ability to be more curious and connected.
It turns out that finding meaningful work has less to do with the title of our occupation and more to do with the tenor of our preoccupation – that is, the nature of our own outlook and ability to make meaning.
The good news we’ve discovered is that every one of us can build this capacity. Every one of us can reclaim our birthright to wonder. We can experience more wonder at work.
Relationships:
Maybe you feel more disconnected from other people than you’d like. Maybe you experience more conflict than deep connection. You might find it difficult to feel appreciation let alone a form fo love we call admiration for another person’s character or skill.
Again, our research points to the fact that every one of us can experience more openness and surprising connection with other people – whether we’ve known them for 20 years or 20 seconds.
The Ordinary Beauty Around You:
It’s possible that the world around you has grown dimmer or goes by in more of a blur than you desire. You’d likely love to slow down enough, pause, and actually open your eyes to the people you live with and the planet you live on.
It turns out that experiences of wonder can astonish the soul and open your eyes again to see what is real and true, beautiful and possible.
And tracking wonder is a skill set you can learn.
Your Own Potential:
Maybe some downer patterns in your mind keep deflating your spirits with self-doubt.
If so, don’t fret. Know you’re not alone, and this state is not your fault. Not only did the year 2020 turned our world upside down. Even before the pandemic, most of us had inherited a set of cultural biases for hyper-productivity and against wonder and all the possibilities it holds.
That’s kind of crazy when you consider that wonder is the singular human experience that dissolves our habitual ways of experiencing the world so we can see again what is real and true, beautiful and possible.
Wonder is our birthright.
Here is an experiment for you to test out over the next 7 days.
Recall a Moment of Surprising Opening
Recall a time or even a moment when you felt expansive in mind and spirit. Maybe a piece of music melted your tension, or you were dancing in the kitchen like no one was watching. Maybe you had a conversation with a friend or even with a stranger.
For three minutes, write down in as much sensory detail where you were, what happened, and how you felt. Doing so will stimulate neuronal networks in your brain that deepen this memory. Doing so makes the memory more real and meaningful.
Ask yourself, “What one step could I take this week to experience something like that again – even for a few minutes?” Record and track your responses.
Then, do it. Let yourself indulge in music or a curiosity conversation or some other activity that disrupts your default patterns of “doing life” the way you’ve been doing it.
You can change your experience of reality. You can track wonder. And whatever your station or walk in life, you can reclaim your birthright to wonder.
Watch your inbox for another surprise from us. It’ll give you next steps to up your wonder ratio in how you live, work, create, and relate – every day.
Be well, and thanks for running with me,
Jeffrey Davis
