Pay Yourself for Joy
Nov 02, 2021
Happy Tuesday, friend!
Do you know that you have a choice?
I know this is a silly question. A few years ago, I started realizing that I have choices. And way more than I ever imagined.
I would love to share with you my discoveries around choices at work.
It used to be that I thought about work as a place where I need to shut down my feelings, intuition, creativity, joy, and free-thinking.
What’s even worse, I got paid for doing that. It didn’t help because it was creating a positive reinforcement (MONEY) for self-sacrifice.
Are you familiar with the Pavlovian conditioning of dogs? It was discovered in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, and Pavlov was a Russian physician.
The idea of the Pavlovian conditioning (his work was continued by Skinner – an American psychologist) is that you can shape the desired behavior (e.g, barking) by giving positive reinforcement (e.g., food) or introducing punishment (scolding or removing food).
If you apply this to humans, instead of food, you can use money. In a workplace, the way money is commonly used is by gradually extinguishing people’s innate ability to understand their needs, desires, boundaries, joy, free-thinking, creativity, and more.
How?
Here’s a simple example. For money or praise, many people will ignore feelings of tiredness, hunger, bathroom needs, fresh air, and movement. Because of that, they will also develop physical or psychological ailments.
This is a learned behavior – not an innate one.
My 10-month-old son doesn’t abandon his body needs. If he is hungry, he lets me know. If he is tired, he also lets me know. And it’s my job to follow his instincts.
At work, however, money is used to suppress many human instincts. In addition, it is used to suppress other important traits - creativity, intuition, joy, authenticity, and self-expression. I think, sometimes, it's done un-intentionally - simply because it's a habit.
In my case, to break from this harmful cycle, the solution was radical.
To Cut Off the Positive Reinforcement for Self-Harmful Behavior.
I stopped paying myself for things that made me abandon myself. Little by little, I started paying myself for work that made me feel more and more authentic and happy.
I started paying myself for JOY!
Glad to report to you that I’m making good progress. My intuition, creativity, self-love, and joy are back online (from being nearly dead). And I have also let go of much fear around money shaping the direction of life. Instead, my inner compass sets the direction.
This is what I discovered:
- Paying for self-sacrifice is very common in our society. For some reason, we appreciate it when people suffer (maybe, un-knowingly). And we reinforce it with money. There're few role models who work differently, but it's changing.
- To break out of this unhealthy cycle, one needs to remember that he or she or they have a choice. Without this remembering, you just keep going on autopilot.
- Once you know that life can be different, it’s a journey of taking little steps towards building a new work paradigm, where
YOU PAY YOURSELF FOR JOY!
I believe it’s possible because I’m walking these steps myself. Crazy, right?! A completely radical, albeit a very normal idea that money can be used to beautify rather than destroy life.
For that very reason, I invite you to be a part of my new course “Pay Yourself for Joy” ™. It begins December 2nd, 2021, and will run for 8 weeks. Christmas and New Year’s will be a break.
With love,
Mariya
P.S. The sales page with course details is coming this week.
P.P.S. Happy Halloween from our family to yours.