I once spent two years saving the world. That time was the most rewarding and enjoyable time of my life to this point, despite the fact that it was also the most difficult. I put forth more mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional effort during that time than I ever had before or have since, and as a result grew and achieved more than I thought possible. It felt like I was living life 20 times faster than I had before, and I probably did learn and grow more in those two years than I would have in 40 years of "normal" life.
It's now been two years since the end of that journey, and I've had a bit of time to reflect on the differences between my life as a superhero saving the world and my life as a normal civilian going to school, dating girls, and working.
My big problem upon retiring as a superhero is that no cause seemed worthy enough to dedicate the same kind of effort to it that I did to my job of saving the world. A thought that often crossed my mind when working is, "does this really matter?" Let's be honest - making spreadsheets in Excel or performing internal audits to ensure that your office actually has as many printers as they think they do isn't inherently inspiring. In fact, I'd say it's inherently mind-numbing to the point that you start wondering if monkeys could be trained to do your job.
However, contrasting my work saving the world and my work making spreadsheets has helped me dissect the drivers behind high-powered motivation. How do you get people, including yourself, to be superheros in their respective jobs? How do you muster the kind of internal motivation that will inspire us to work harder and smarter than anyone knew we could?
No one likes to be lazy, or disengaged, or inefficient. People want to push themselves. We want to create change. We want to save the world.
Apply it!
The real work, then, lies in understanding how a job saves the world. What need does it fill? Why does it really matter?
For example, I started a small business selling niche daily planners about two years ago. They're made of paper, are spiral bound, and provide a place for you to write stuff down. I was and am extremely dedicated to the product and have given the business more of my time and effort than it's worth in monetary terms. In fact, I was probably working at less than $2.00 an hour while building it. But I believe in it. I can see how it saves the world, so I continue to put time and effort into it (and continue to make almost nothing for it).
How do my planners save the world? The mission of the company is to help returning missionaries keep up the good habits they learn during their service, namely goal setting and planning. Those skills are necessary to living a life of high engagement, and a life of high engagement is a very rewarding one. I want to prevent these returning missionaries from slipping out of the habits that make them so potent as they serve. I see it as a literal matter of life and death. The high level of engagement they achieve on missions cannot survive when they return home without continued goal setting and planning. If they stop doing those things, their potent lifestyle dies. Simple as that. And that's how my work in the planner business saves the world.
Whatever the job is, if people are paying you for it, you're saving someone's world. Figure out how your work saves the world, why it really matters, and become a superhero. You'll love the lifestyle.
Here are some questions to ask yourself or others to help figure out why what you do matters:
- What do people use my product/service for?
- Why do they do that?
- Why do they do that?
- Why do they do that?
Keep going until you find something that means something to you, then get out and save the world.
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