The Longest Drive

You’ve said it. Many, many times as a kid sitting in the car on a trip to someplace exciting. Going to a place you love to be and have been waiting to get to. “Are we there yet?” Even now a drive to the beach or a mountain vacation home or to visit a good friend seems to take forever. It seems like the longest drive because we want to be there rather than where we are.

But maybe you have experienced another kind of longest drive. Maybe you experience it every day going to work. The longest drive can sometimes be the commute you take to work because you DON’T want to go there. That drive can be filled with dread, anxiety, boredom or even fear. Sometimes it begins on Sunday afternoon as you realize the weekend is drawing to an end and tomorrow means work. You don’t have to be behind the wheel or on the train to start that drive. 

If your drive to work is an exercise in dread and anxiety, ask yourself “why?” Are you trapped doing work you do not like, work that bores or frustrates you, or work that seems far more difficult and challenging for you than it should be? Even if you basically like the work you do, are you stuck in a professional role that forces you to deal with too many people, or keeps you too isolated from others? 

To be really satisfied, people need to be engaged in work that draws on their strengths and allows them to work in a role and environment that reflects the way they naturally prefer. If you have those elements in your work, your longest drive to work will be the one that has you asking “Am I there yet?”