Hello,
Most of us are driven by a purpose, on a daily basis.
However, most often we mistake the nature of that purpose.
Having clarity of the PURPOSE that we are daily engaging in, is absolute necessity.
If not for our success, at least for our mental peace.
Our purpose could be professional or amateurish.
Source: https://www.adzuna.ca/blog/2017/03/16/5-ways-to-be-confident-during-your-first-job-interview/
To use the dictionary, professional means being a person who works in a particular profession that requires special education, training, or skill.
An amateur means one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession. An Amateur lacks experience and competence in that profession to deliver to the standard expectations people have from that profession.
So, how do we see your purpose, being professional or being an amateur?
It might be possible that we might be driving multiple purposes in a day.
Given our technology usage and adoption and the daily demands of others and the society, each one of us might be multi-tasking our purposes.
I humbly request you to know the nature of your purpose and align your TIST (time, intellect, sweat and tears) accordingly.
If not, you are worse than not pursuing those purposes.
Please allow me to elaborate!
A Professional excels, no matter the circumstances.
An amateur needs perfect conditions for him/her to perform, if not s/he can not perform, and excellence will be a very far cry.
Would we go to a professional surgeon or an amateur surgeon?
By the way, we will NEVER find an amateur surgeon.
So there!
Source: https://resources.instahyre.com/blog/professionalism-in-the-workplace/
We need to be professional if our effort has the possibility of fatality, either our or others.
We need to be professional if our purpose is to help others get better at themselves, health wise, wealth wise, happiness wise.
We need to be professional if our purpose is to meet the expectations of others, that we have actively encouraged them to have. More so, when the services are paid for.
A professional is committed to the expectations they have set for others.
A professional makes a promise and keeps the promise regardless of what they feel like doing it or not.
On the other hand an amateur gets to be authentic.
An amatuer will show up when they want to make what they want to make.
People love to be amateurs at some things.
An amateur is pursuing a profession as a hobby.
That is the reason, we have amateur painters, amatuer musicians, or amatuer chefs.
Remember, we will not have an amateur chef in a high end restaurant or employed in a holiday cruise liner.
If our purpose is amateurish, let's not sell it.
Attempting to sell it, will erode our personal equity/esteem in the given situation.
So, let's not.
If our purpose is amateurish, let's look for an applause and enjoy it if we get it.
Let's enjoy working for the purpose, as we are doing it as a hobby which is a self centered pursuit.
To be a professional, we need to have a set of pre-requisites.
In our domain, we need to understand the state of the art to deliver the promised expectations.
We need to strive to raise the bar of our performance in comparison to
what we are expected to deliver.
We need to be uniform in our performance and delivery.
As a professional, it is advisable to avoid Yo-Yo from our performance.
Consistency is the key.
When we are professional, irrespective of the situation and the context, we're expected to behave as if we're in the workspace.
We're expected to be available in the appointed hours, the self appointed times in the day that we have indicated to our beneficiaries (aka clients).
How to keep a track of what is our nature of our purpose?
When we're a professional we will never miss a deadline. (if we do, we are amateurs).
When we're professional, we will never go over the allocated budget or costing in delivering to the clients' expectations. (if we go over the budget, we are amatuer).
When we're professional, we will never throw tantrums, even if the situations and the challenges are much worse than what was agreed upon.
When we're professional, we will take things in our stride in terms of inputs and deliver the promise of what we have committed to deliver. (if we are throwing tantrums, then by now, we know who we are!).
Let's not commit like a professional and deliver like an amateur.
If at all we want to make our amateurish hobby into a (side) business, let's commit to be a professional.
Source: https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/famous_for_being_famous.asp
An appeal to you.
I humbly request you to know the nature of your purpose and align your TIST (time, intellect, sweat and tears) accordingly.
If not, you are worse than not pursuing those purposes.
To higher profits,
Prof. KK