If you look at a typical day for you, are you happy with it? Do you like how you spend your days, your time, and your energy? Does your work day invigorate or drain you?
Back in 2005, I started noticing that I really wasn’t happy with my day. At the time, I was working as a developer for American Greetings. They’re a card company that competes with Hallmark. I was in a manufacturing and warehousing operation, managing data and doing upkeep on aging applications.
The work was…really boring.
The boredom turned into frustration, excess stress, and even some anger. This was my first corporate job in my field since leaving college. During my degree program, tech was the focus. In the corporate world, spreadsheets were the focus. It was disheartening.
I started to wonder what else I could be doing. I thought I would be happy as a programmer – I was a computer geek after all. But the end result was that I didn’t like what I was doing. Part of that was the work and methodologies of American Greetings, but part of it was that I simply chose the wrong career path.
I was unhappy with my day to day work, and I started looking for a way out. What about you? How happy are you with your day to day work?
I first noticed this in 2005, but I didn’t leave American Greetings until the summer of 2006. And I didn’t really figure out what “did it” for me, professionally, for a few more years. I noticed I wasn’t happy with my career in 2005, and six years later, I’m just now figuring out exactly what I need to do to be happy with my average day.
Whatever the big picture is, sometimes you have to look at it just one day at a time. I spent some time obsessing over the big picture, but I was looking at something too complex…too broad. I realized I wasn’t looking at the problem the right way.
I had to stop and look at a single day – any day, really – and figure out what would give me a sense of satisfaction. That’s what I suggest you do. Look at a single day that you like, and see how you can magnify that one day (task, motivation, etc.) into a career.
If you have an end goal in mind, but the journey is filled with a bunch of crappy days, will you enjoy getting to the goal? At the end of your journey, will it be worth it? I propose an alternate route to the day by day drudgery.
If you have day after day of crap, you just end up with a crappy time. If, however, you have a day of joy, contentment, and purpose, day after day, won’t you be happier?
I want to be able to wake up on a Saturday and say, “That was an awesome week.” I want to be able and look back at any given day and say, “nice.” What I don’t want to do is look back and say, “I’m glad that’s over.”
Look at your own life and goals. When you get to where you want to be, will you be happy with how you got there? Will you spend ten or twenty years unhappy on a day to day basis just to reach the fabled bucket of gold at the end of a rainbow?
I’m not saying that your goal isn’t worth the effort, but maybe getting there doesn’t have to be so stressful. Maybe you should start living every day and making each day awesome, instead of “putting your time in” as taught by the establishment. Ignore them. Make each day awesome. That’s what I’m trying to do.
