Caring For Your Garden

If we were all to look at our occupations and careers as our business and marketplace garden, how would we go about our day tending to it? Are your tasks connected to the overall goal of nurturing your workplace garden? When I go to work I try to remember that every person is a unique creation and needs to be cared for in a unique way. Sort of funny to think of it this way, but each of them needs to be watered and cared for with their own personal set of instructions. I care about them first because I believe God cares about every person in my workplace. He does His own cultivating; the big pruning that ultimately creates the beauty everyone is destined to walk in. 

But what’s my role in my occupational garden? Like a garden, do I press in to see the interconnectedness of what we do through our job responsibilities and how we affect one another in behavior and support ( or lack thereof). I mean, I can truly affect someone’s output and their work product first by my mere existence; second by how I choose to tend the garden. The seeds of encouragement or negativity I sow determine the yielded fruit in my company. Some staff are seedlings, still taking in extra nourishment from office mentors and leadership. They need extra care and attention to better understand the details that make our company garden thrive and perform so successfully. The fragile discovery of workplace culture and etiquette is almost invisible to the naked eye but oh so powerful in how our company garden grows. Here those seedlings are learning the good and challenging aspects of being interconnected in a garden of unique creations. And there are the trees... yes, like a big oak (I’m from the south!) holding a heavy presence in the garden. Some strong from the inward confidence and unstructured knowledge they’ve received having been trained from the "ground" up, having the next step so readily rooted at their seasoned fingertips. Then there are the tall trees that demand acknowledgement just because they’ve been there so long. Uh huh, you know the entitled-feeling ones in the workplace garden. These trees prohibit an open and inspiring garden because they sadly can't see the forest. We need rainmakers that rightly know how to steer a conversation or develop a fruitful work relationship. But back to those seedlings - - how they need constant watering and food. We are called to nurture and nourish the seedlings with elements such as good values, discretion in our workplace. Not micromanage them; mentor them. A distinct difference.  

I must do my part in the garden to fix whatever I can with the overarching understanding that I want my garden to always be fed well with courtesy, respect, humility and most of all passion and peace. I will make my occupational role an expression of gratitude for the privilege to share my labor with other unique creations in the garden of my career. There’s an eclectic mix in my garden.. millenials, boomers, Gen Yers through Zers! Hey, we all need watering. How are you caring for your workplace garden? Do you need watering? Are you performing constructive actions to transform your garden? Let’s dig in! How's your garden growing? Live a Fruitful Life Today!

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