Hopefully last month’s column helped you lock in on, or at least get closer to, your own clear purpose for why you do what you do. Let’s build on that now, similar to how I did for everyone who will be working through Leading With A Clear Purpose when it’s released in February 2025. As I scoured through all sorts of resources while writing the book, I became even more convinced that working toward something truly meaningful offsets so much of what we hear today about burnout.
I frequently hear folks say, “When you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” What a bunch of crap! I’ve never had, nor have I ever seen, a role that only involves tasks we love. Cindy and I certainly don’t have that luxury today – and we run our own business. For what it’s worth, I’d bet nearly any business owner you ask would agree with that statement. Regardless of whether I enjoy every single task or not, I have grown quite fond eating real food (rather than foraging in the yard for bugs and bark) and sleeping inside so I push through. During my time in human resources, I heard so many people push back when asked to complete certain aspects of their jobs, saying they didn’t like doing that particular thing. All too often, their supervisor or manager appeased them to avoid a scene. We’ll dig into this more shortly, but have you ever experienced something like this when dealing with a child?
A stark reality we all face in our professional lives is that there are indeed tasks we’re responsible for completing that just plain suck. Suggesting it’s even remotely possible to love everything we do is a pipe dream. Not so long ago, though, I heard Marcus Buckingham share some statistics that provided me with a whole new perspective on how love fits into the equation. He cited a Mayo Clinic study showing that people performed best when they connected love to just 20% of what they did on a routine basis. He went on to emphasize that even when we don’t necessarily love doing a specific thing, we can still choose to do it lovingly.
Now, back to that question about appeasing a child to avoid a scene… With our children, or really in any personal relationship, we’ll never have the luxury of enjoying every situation. Life has a tendency to throw things at us. With the possible exception of during our kids’ teenage years, I believe we’d be able to easily identify at least 20% of the relationship that we do truly love. Aside from our children, I’d go so far as to question the validity of any relationship where we can’t love 20% – but that’s a fight for another day. What I’ll challenge you to consider in closing is how you can approach the things you don’t love but absolutely must do, to maintain a relationship or to keep receiving a paycheck, with a loving approach. When we can perform even the crappiest tasks lovingly, it will show through to anyone who’s impacted, and I’ll just bet you that completing it will suck a little less.
