178. When hard work becomes easy work
“Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions — Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.” — Chanakya
Generally, the first thing I do in the morning after drinking about a litre of water and then putting milk to boil, is to start studying the field of my interest at the time — for the last several months, my interest has been complex adaptive systems. I read books on the subject — some technical, not-easy-to-understand and some narrative-oriented which are quite engaging. Irrespective of the source being engaging or not, I am constantly drawn more and more to it. I read books by scientists — including pioneers of the field and also by science enthusiasts. This gave me varying perspectives and sometimes subtle, yet profound, realizations of various aspects of the field. Also, I have started to observe critically the things happening around me — people around me and their experiences with their investments in real estate and stock markets, their careers, education and even performances in endurance activities such as running and cycling. In these observations, I see my learnings of complex adaptive systems come alive into action and this is further helping me push down my learning from a “theoretical” level to the “visceral” level. This visceral learning is, in turn, helping me make decisions and take up actions which I would have previously thought to be too big or bold for me. This flow from theory to application is hugely self-reinforcing my further interest into the subject.
So, for a lay observer, I may come across as obsessed about the subject and also that I’m putting in way too much hard work into it. But for me, this feels like an exciting excursion to an amusement park with thrilling rides — I feel somewhat like Alice in the wonderland. What should feel like hard work does not feel like work at all. Well, almost.
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig.” — Malcolm Gladwell
During my corporate career, I did work very hard. I used to spend long hours at office. I was not really off “work” mode even when I was outside office. Work related phone calls and emails would come in all the time, day and night, and I had to expend significant mental energy in dealing with most of them. What I used to do must have looked like hard work and it certainly felt like hard work too. Catching an occasional movie on TV used to be a much sought-after escapade from hard work. To be honest, not all the effort I spent on work felt dreary. Every once in a while, there used to an exciting, engaging and challenging project. “Flow” state was occasionally felt. But overall, it felt like hard work. Main source of inspiration to get through the hard work was the clock-like regularity of monthly salary deposits and to an extent, the bonding with the teams I worked with. Of course, there was also that carrot of career progression. Surely, there was no intrinsic motivation — it did not feel like I was saving or bettering people’s lives — there was some indirect impact of my work in improving the world, surely, but most of my effort was spent in creating strategy presentations and performance reports with limited useful lives. Perhaps because of the largely extrinsic motivating factors and very little intrinsic motivation, work felt hard and tedious.
“Money can extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity, encourage unethical behavior, foster short-term thinking, and become addictive.” — Daniel H. Pink
Now, I “work” for myself — mostly developing myself and using my learning to experiment with consequential potential impacts. Even now I create presentations for the occasional webinars that I do, but the difference now is that all the motivation is intrinsic — in fact, there is no extrinsic motivation at all. I “work” in the weekdays and in the weekends too. I “work” in the wee hours of the mornings and sometimes late into night as well. But it does not feel like work at all. In fact, I’m drawn towards work somewhat like a moth to a brightly lit bulb — no more having to push myself to work.
I think the magnitude of organic and intrinsic motivation calibrates the feeling of “hardness” of work. But most of us do not have the luxury of pursuing only the work that completely satisfies our internal desires, paying no heed to the practicalities of life such as having to earn money to fund our lifestyles.
“Most people aren’t anywhere near to realizing their creative potential, in part because they’re laboring in environments that impede intrinsic motivation.” — Teresa Amabile
So, the question really is what we can do reduce the “hardness” and increase the “pleasantness” of work. How do you push the balance in your favour? Given that the world is changing all the time, this balance is necessarily a dynamic pursuit. It is my rather strong belief that with critical prioritization, arriving at this balance is not really question of “if” but a question of “when”. For most people, it does not matter what their educational or family background is, it does not matter if they are coming from monies or not, it does matter if they are at junior or senior cadre in a firm, it is only a matter of “prioritizing” this balance and being patient.
Bottomline
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” — Pele
External motivations such as salary, designation etc, can help you feel good about your work for only so long and so much. Our minds adjust to the higher salaries and fancier titles rather quickly as a result of one of our brains’ tendencies called “hedonistic adaptation”. So, quickly enough, desired benchmarks move on to the next level of salary and title leaving you on a frantic struggle to climb the next incline of this unending mountain (“hedonistic treadmill”). Whereas if your motivation for work comes from intrinsic factors that align with your personal values and principles, work may not feel as much like a chore as an exciting challenge.
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I spend most of my time helping people make better decisions, build financial intuition and build great careers.
