Love What You Do
Is it possible?
For a long time people espoused the “Do What You Love and the Money will Follow” mantra. Heck. I even had a book of the same name. That, for me, was a direct line to disillusion, frustration and feeling like a failure.
Because I love to do a high number of things - most of which - without a boundary of some sort can lead down rabbit holes more exciting than what Alice found in Wonderland, and just as lucrative.
If you’re like me, you probably are less focused on MONEY and more focused on contribution. This is, mind you, not to say that I don’t like money. Alot. I do. I just tend to head out the door and down the path to find satisfaction and a sense of helping before I set out for a large paycheck.
Sometimes this works out and other times not so much. The phrase feast or famine comes to mind. Nonetheless, looking back for patterns in my career and income I see that when I find something to love in what I’m doing, I tend to feel richer.
This is not because I set out with an intention to do what I love…nope. I set out to get a job that would pay the bills (and maybe leave me space to do what I loved — that’s another tale altogether).
How do you love what you do?
For me I was raised by a Dad who instilled a great worth ethic and the admonition that no matter what I did for a living, I ought to set a goal to be the best at it as I possibly could be. I also watched him model the behavior that treats everyone like they matter. (I wrote more about his influence here.)
Loving what I do matters to me.
That doesn’t mean that everything I love to do naturally translates to a job (or a business, although it could). It does mean leaning into opportunities to use what I love to do on a regular basis.
A few examples:
I LOVE to teach what I’ve learned. As soon I’ve learned something beneficial I would love nothing better than to go out on the corner and teach everyone and anyone who walks by. In a job that means looking for the opportunities to be the early adapter of technology, systems, processes and then part of the team that provides training and assistance to the rest of the team. As a business, that could mean consulting, teaching, and/or training in the area of expertise.
I LOVE to engage with people and learn their strengths so I can empower them to excel. In a job that means spending time talking to my teammates/leaders/cross-functional partners and asking them questions to get to know them as people, not just as job titles. In essence time spent networking with those I work with - not to see what they can do for me, rather understanding what I can do to help them reach their goals. It means recommending them for tasks and opportunities that will help them grow into the roles they desire. As a business that means doing the same thing, usually with a specific focus (coaching engineers to reach leadership positions), as well as providing opportunities for people to gather and meet others with their similar goals and desires as well as others who can help them achieve their dreams. The ability to provide community is a secret sauce.
I LOVE making things out of sticks and strings - knitting and crocheting. In a job this plays out following patterns and directions to reach a specific goal. It’s an opportunity to see connections and creative solutions and participate in a process to see a complicated project come to fruition. As a business this could literally mean designing patterns for sale or selling finished objects to ideal clients.
For those of us living in the US/Canada/Europe we have the opportunities before us to find ways to love what we do and catapult ourselves to even greater opportunities to love what we do. From there we can use our resources to help others who don’t have the same level of choice in their work. Loving what we do is a choice of which there are plenty. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to choose which doesn’t mean the choice doesn’t exist.
Join me tomorrow (June 26) at 5 pm Eastern to talk about what loving what you do looks like for you!