Bring Yourself to Work Day Everyday!

Today is Bring Yourself to Work Day!!!

Today we invite you to Bring Yourself To Work Day™. This is an invitation to experience work in a really different way and an opportunity to create with others a workplace that’s safe for you to be yourself.

Today we invite you to set aside the five workplace inhibitions and engage in The Five Freedoms instead.

The five workplace inhibitions are patterns that we pick up early in our work lives. These are the parts of our nature we too often learn to omit from our public selves. What begins as innocent attempts to fit in, repeated over time, can become work life-limiting patterns.

The Five Inhibitions

To see and hear only what should be, was, or will be, instead of what is here now.
To say only what one ought to say instead of what one feels and thinks.
To feel only what one ought to feel instead of what one really feels.
To ask only for what one is supposed to want and then wait for permission to act instead of asking for what one wants.
To choose to be “secure” and not rock the boat instead of taking risks in one’s own behalf.

Bring Yourself To Work Day is intended to disrupt this pattern. We invite you to exercise Virginia Satir’s Five Freedoms for just one day and see what happens:

The Five Freedoms
To see and hear what is here, instead of what should be, was, or will be.
To say what one feels and thinks instead of what one should.
To feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.
To ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.
To take risks in one's own behalf, instead of choosing only to be “secure” and not rocking the boat.

For Bring Yourself To Work Day, consider adding a sixth freedom, the freedom to choose when, where, and how to exercise the other five freedoms! Fully exercising these six freedoms is widely believed to be career limiting. We’re betting that it won’t be.

Here you'll find exercises for Bring Yourself to Work Day, ideas for team and organization wide activities, and links to others' experiences.

Share your Bring Yourself to Work Day with others. View others' ideas, questions, and comments at our Google Group. http://groups.google.com/group/bringyourselftowork?hl=en

If you'd like to contribute, there will be a short registration.

Welcome!