Learn to Love the Work You Do

Most of my frustration in life has come from a single error in my thinking.

I wanted my life to be interesting, and so I thought that what I needed was big goals, big dreams, and lots of adventure.

But here’s the thing about those grand plans— even the most interesting life on the outside, is filled with all sorts of mundane moments. There’s simply no way to feast on a steady diet of those adrenaline-inducing activities. Want to travel abroad? Prepare yourself to wait in lines, squeeze into small seats, search for places to do laundry, and many more not so exciting chores that only get harder when you’re away from home. 

Any worthy endeavor is like this— from starting a business and learning a new hobby to  planning a vacation and enjoying lifelong love. 

And even if we could somehow eliminate all the mundane, we’d eventually grow weary of the constant excitement. That’s just the way we humans are, and it’s best to come to terms with it rather than fight it.

So what have I learned from this struggle against my own nature?

The path to a satisfying life must embrace life’s ordinary chores and find a way to love the work itself. The alternative is to resent the work, and that’s a miserable path to take. Ironically, when you finally do settle into the rhythm of doing the work, and finding some intrinsic satisfaction in the progress you make, a whole host of new pleasures begin to bloom. 

And if you work hard enough, and don’t forget to follow your curiosity along the way, exciting things are bound to happen. And these adventures will be all the more rewarding when they are icing on the cake, rather than an expectation you put on yourself all the time.

Learning to love the work is an art, though. 

Here are some tips that have worked for me. I hope they prove to be a useful launching point in your own quest to find contentment and satisfaction with your everyday reality.

Recognize the value of the task at hand. In the past, I’ve been too quick to label certain tasks as a waste of time, when in fact, they are often the kinds of work that keep the gears of our lives turning. Everything from taking out the trash and replying to an email to paying a bill and picking up groceries— these are the kinds of jobs that aren’t glamorous, but in their aggregate make for a smoothly operating home life, if done with diligence. I think it’s time to raise their status and give them the credit they’re due.

Take satisfaction in the ordinary thrill of making progress. Some people use long-term goals as a source of motivation, but my experience has been that goals only motivate me in an abstract way, but not in the moment-to-moment parts of my life when I really need it.

A 2012 journal article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology highlights the importance of progress in our efforts to self-regulate motivation, along with the interesting ways we manipulate our perception in order to stay inspired.

In order to stick with a goal for years of daily effort, you need more than just the prospect of eventual reward, and for me that comes form the thrill of making progress. The most basic way is to create a checklist and enjoy the satisfaction of checking things off, but there are many ways to reinforce a sense of forward momentum in your life.

Pay attention to the experience of whatever you’re doing. Back when I was a long distance runner in high school and college, I had to find ways to stay motivated to train hard over the course of a long season. Besides being on a team, which is the best support of all, I learned to embrace the daily sensations of my sport. 

The steady rhythm you fall into after a few miles of running, the gentle stretching afterwards with special attention to sore areas, and the prospect of a nice shower afterwards filled with the satisfaction of putting in the work were all aspects I enjoyed. These simple pleasures are available to anyone and grow richer over time.

Cultivate your own personal style or approach to the work. I don’t hear people talk about this idea, but I’ve always felt the idea of identity is a huge driver of motivation. So why not craft a unique identity for yourself and try to live up to it. Maybe you decide to be the fastest email responder in your company, or an amazingly efficient kitchen cleaner. There are all sorts of ways to take this, but a good place to start is to take a natural part of your personality or style already, and turn up the dial. 

Turn the task into a game by adding a set of rules. Similar to the idea above, but instead of focusing on identity, you try to gamify whatever you’re working on to make it more interesting. The easiest way to do this is by imposing a set of arbitrary but challenging rules. You could set a timer and try to complete a task in a certain timeframe, or take out the trash using only your non-dominant hand. Try clearing out your inbox all the way to zero, or preparing a great meal for your family with only 5 ingredients. Embracing limits works by adding extra stimulation to an otherwise low-key task, and it’s often enough to get you reengaged.