We’ve been told all our lives that we have to suffer at work to get ahead. But it turns out that we don’t need to suffer in order to make meaningful progress.

In this episode, we talk about how making room for work we enjoy helps unlock who we are as a person and a professional.

Transcript:

We’ve been told all our lives that we have to suffer at work to get ahead. But it turns out that we actually don’t need to suffer to make meaningful progress at work, and happiness can and should be an essential part of our workday. Let’s talk about why. Here we go. 

One of the things we’ve been told all our lives is that if we want to get ahead in life or if we want to have a successful career, the only way to do that is by doing things that are hard or that have an element of suffering. 

If I ask you to make a list of words that come to mind when you think about what it would take to have a “successful” career, at the top of that list are probably words like intensity, pressure, stress, and sacrifice.

I understand that. For me personally, I used to think that if I wasn’t feeling stressed or under intense pressure during my workday, then I wasn’t getting anything meaningful done. 

I felt like if I was enjoying what I was doing or if I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed, then that must mean I wasn’t “working hard enough.” 

I realized that I was directly linking my stress levels to professional progress and success

This came to light for me when I owned my own law firm. Some of the things I enjoyed the most were creating helpful resources for my clients, spending an hour strategizing with them off the clock, coming up with creative marketing materials, and presenting at my local bar association. 

But I started to feel guilty about doing those things because they weren’t “hard” enough. They seemed too easy and I enjoyed doing them. 

So I began to edge them out of my day, which led me to feel even more miserable because all I was doing during the day were things that I didn’t like. 

Then I went into punishment mode. I told myself that I needed to learn how to like all the hard things. I told myself that I had to suck it up, and that the only way I’d accomplish my goals was to keep doing things that I didn’t like to do. 

This is story and a narrative we’ve been told our entire lives – if you want to be successful and you want to achieve, it has to hurt. 

But here’s something I want you to consider: professional success and experiencing happiness and fulfillment during a workday are not mutually exclusive. You don’t have to suppress or push away things that actually make you happy in order to succeed. 

In fact I’d argue that if you really want to experience your version of professional success, you should pay close attention to and run towards as many things as you can that get you excited about your workday. 

And here’s why that’s so important. When we incorporate things in our workday that make us happy, then we unlock who we really are as people and professionals. At the root of that excitement or happiness is something that MUST be important to you as an individual because it’s making you feel alive.

It’s not a mistake that something about your workday gets you excited, and it’s not something to feel guilty about. What’s behind that feeling is something that’s natural and exciting and true to who you are – so you actually owe it to yourself to understand what that is.

Take a moment to think about a time when you did something at work that made you feel happy – think about that welling up of excitement and the energy and enthusiasm that came with that. 

And then imagine what it would feel like to have that feeling regularly. Think about the things you could accomplish and how your life would change if you could harness and relive that experience day after day. 

Instead of trying to block out those things, what we should be doing is looking for ways to accentuate the aspects of our work that make us happy, because we can use that information to decide what we want to do with our workdays and what we want to do with our career. 

Now of course there will always be challenges and roadblocks and barriers and other things that we have to overcome, and hard things that we have to do that we don’t necessarily want to do.

So to be clear I’m not saying you shouldn’t work hard or that sacrifice and hard work are not key components of your work and your development as a professional. They absolutely are. I’ll be the first person to acknowledge that pursuing a career that you want involves things like hard work and sacrifice. 

There are also lots of people who’ve become successful without happiness being a part of the equation. There are plenty of people who have spent their entire life working and grinding and being stressed 24/7, and yes, they have gotten ahead in life and achieved a lot. 

But here’s what I am saying. If you’re going to work hard, and sacrifice, and experience pressure, you owe it to yourself to have those things be in the name of something you enjoy and that makes you happy. 

What’s the point of getting up everyday and devoting the majority of your day and all of your good energy to something that doesn’t add significant value to your life or that allows you to be the best expression of yourself?

We don’t have to think of suffering as the only path forward or the only way we can advance – we can work hard and we can experience happiness, the two are not mutually exclusive. 

When you learn what it is that makes you happy, then you can focus your hard work on the things that make you happy. 

And if you can’t think of anything in your day that makes you happy, then now is a great time to consider whether the path you’re on is the right one for you. 

So here’s your takeaway: Remember that you don’t need to suffer to make progress with your work. You’re not only allowed to have happiness be a part of your workday, you owe it to yourself to craft a career and a day that allows for as much of the kind of work you enjoy as possible. 

So spend some time in the next few days thinking about what it is that you enjoy, or want to enjoy, about your workday. Dig a little deeper into that and try to understand what’s at the root of that happiness, and how you might be able to increase those things in your day to day work experience.  

Go have a great workday.