There are a lot of good quality tools and improvement processes out there for when you are not engaged and productivity wanes. But until you find the root cause of your behavior, any improvement won’t be sustained.

I read about the three modalities of awakened doing in Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth (Penguin Group, 2006), and I realized they could be applied at work. The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm.

Acceptance

“Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly,” writes Eckhart. “If you can neither enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do—stop. Otherwise you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness.”

Enjoyment

“What is the relationship between something that you do and the state of joy?” Eckhart asks. “You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. When you make the present moment, instead of the past or future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do—and with it the quality of your life—increases dramatically.”

 …