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Be honest: do you love what you do? This is a great question to start the year with, in my mind. Many of us could benefit from taking stock of who we are, what we do, and how we want to improve.

If you’ve been reading my newsletter and blogs for a while, you know that I love what I do. Why? I’d say it’s because of the variety of tasks that I tackle each day, as I tried to describe in my last blog. I also love it because I work in a field that has undergone many changes and I have enjoyed the journey of adapting to them. When I first started in the communications industry, using a computer for ‘word processing’ (aka writing) was still pretty new, there was no such thing as social media or email, and the term “personal brand” had not yet been coined. (It is thought to have been created in 1997, but if you think about the famous showman and circus promoter P.T. Barnum, personal brand has been around for decades.)

In fact, a love for what I do is what encouraged me to start my own business. Many years ago, I read the book, “Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow,” which inspired me to try to work on my own terms using what I felt were my natural talents.

Many of you no doubt love what you do and wouldn’t change a thing. A few years ago, I wrote about Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn co-founder and matriarch Dorothy Zehnder. She is definitely someone who loves what she does and is still doing it today, even at 97 years young.

Loving what you do may involve progression in your life and work, maybe even reinvention (an oft-used term these days). I’d say that I’m probably on at least version 3.0 of myself. I think of all the different career experiences I’ve had – from working in the nonprofit field, to starting a business, teaching at the college level, and being a journalist. Now, I see myself taking some of those experiences and focusing more on them for this next “version” of me.

May this year be one where you find yourself truly loving what you do – whether it’s the same thing, or perhaps a reinvention.

-Sue Voyles