Why Easy Street Is a Road to Nowhere

"I love my job," your friend says. "I get paid well to do hardly anything at all."

While this may be the definition of a good job for some people, it is the definition of a terrible job for office professionals. Indeed, professionals are constantly looking for ways to develop their careers, challenge themselves and court situations that will either end in progress or failure. Professionals scorn the status quo; they didn’t work this hard in school and at the job just to coast through life for the next 30 years. Life is too short to act like you’re at the end of it.

Being proactive about your career, and anything in life for that matter, typically begins with a healthy sense of curiosity. Wanting to know what is behind the curtain, how you can improve the current state of things and find solutions to flaws and challenges that burden us both professionally and personally. We learn more from obstacles in life, even the ones we currently have failed to overcome, than we do by sitting idly in our comfort zones, hoping the boss doesn’t walk by while we’re wasting time on Facebook. Solving problems helps us at problem solving, an indispensable skill in today’s professional landscape.

This article explains, "It's not until we encounter an unexpected hindrance—a challenge we can't easily solve—that the chains of cognition are loosened, giving us newfound access to the weird connections simmering in the imagination. The benefit of obstacles also carries over into totally unrelated tasks, which is why beginning the day with a difficult crossword puzzle or writing a haiku can help people to become better real-world problem solvers."

So seek out ways to exercise your brain and develop your problem solving skills at the office. Talk to your bosses and colleagues and ask them what their greatest hurdles are to efficiency, productivity and workplace happiness. Ask yourself those same questions then set out to solve those problems. Be creative. Think. Outline problems and ways to solve them. This is lifestyle and not simply a strategy – a lifestyle that will lead to a lifetime of solutions.

Image courtesy of edbrambley.