Finding Work You Love

😍 From Paul Graham’s excellent essay, How To Do What You Love…

It’s hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don’t underestimate this task. And don’t feel bad if you haven’t succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you’re discontented, you’re a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial.

He goes on to share two things you can do to “keep yourself honest” on the search for work you love…

One is to try to do a good job at whatever you’re doing, even if you don’t like it. Then at least you’ll know you’re not using dissatisfaction as an excuse for being lazy. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll get into the habit of doing things well.

I’ve noticed that the people who do well working for themselves are often the people who do well working for others.

They were usually crushing it as an employee 💪 before deciding to step away and do their own thing.

So if you’re in a job you don’t particularly like right now, use it as an opportunity to get into the habit of doing things well.

Back to Paul Graham…

Another test you can use is: always produce. For example, if you have a day job you don’t take seriously because you plan to be a novelist, are you producing? Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? As long as you’re producing, you’ll know you’re not merely using the hazy vision of the grand novel you plan to write one day as an opiate. The view of it will be obstructed by the all too palpably flawed one you’re actually writing.

It can be hard to work on your own stuff while holding down a full-time job. And then you might have family commitments as well 😰

But do your best to produce something regularly, even if it’s only snippets of code or writing or video or whatever.

Last words from Graham 👇

Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it’s rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you’ll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you’re in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you’re practically there.

(Btw, the Founders podcast has a good episode about Paul Graham’s essays.)