I am still rubbing sand out my ears and hair, after spending an hour with my family on the beach yesterday.
Before building sandcastles, I signed up for lessons from my 7-year old son on "How to Somersault Down the Sand Dunes". He quickly informed me that I was “too loose” and needed to curl up into a tighter ball for the most effective (and most speedy) trip down the sandy slopes.
In the process, I was transported back - to a Jim that was more playful and less "concerned".
(Bonus reward: I connected even more deeply with my son, if that's possible.)
It was a blast!
As you travel down the path you're currently taking, remember to pamper yourself with your own version of sand-dune-somersaulting or sandcastle building along the way.In your work, you’ll have numerous opportunities to calculate effectiveness. You’ll likely be able to look at key metrics to see if your efforts are having a high ROI. Your bank account balance, for one, will tell you if you need to make adjustments to either your income-gathering abilities or your skill at keeping costs low. In the word of online marketing, you can use keyword tools to see which keyword phrases have the best “keyword effectiveness index” (KEI), a fancy term which means that there is great need and little competition... many people searching for this keyword phrase and few sites delivering relevant results.
But in the end, all this is worthless if you forget about one thing: your “enjoyment effectiveness index”.
Whenever you’re contemplating your work options, be sure to ask, “Will I enjoy the journey?”
This is one of the most powerful components of success, and the one most often disregarded or forgotten.
For example, I am writing this book. As I finalize my outline, I find myself asking:
• Is my title attention-grabbing and memorable?• Is there a tribe in need of this particular topic, waiting for someone to help them?
• Will Topic C or Subtopic D be something they want or need?
All of these questions are important. No doubt about it. But if I obsess only on questions like these, I’ll forget the most important part – my own passion and enjoyment.
In order to reach my goal and bring this book to the world, I will need a tremendous amount of positive energy. I will need to be highly motivated to learn. And I will need to be enjoying each and every day along the journey.Sure it will require a great deal of effort to get to the top of the mountain. There will be days when I am temporarily tricked into believing I don’t want to work. But I’ll see though the lie and get right back on track. This will be especially easy to do if I am having fun along the way.
On your journey, your work may not involve somersaulting down the sand dunes with your kids every single second of each day. Your work may involve solitary, intense blocks of uninterrupted focus. You may not experience the delightful side effects of sand in your ears. Either way, you will certainly need to march back up the hill from time to time.
But if you’re doing what you love, you’ll find yourself fueled on when times are tough, and especially inspired during moments of high returns.
And the rewards will indeed be high. Commentator Justin Wolfers, in his blog and podcast appearance on The Economics of Doing What You Love weighs the costs vs. the benefits of marathon running. Even though shoes are cheap, he shows how "opportunity cost" makes the sport expensive. But in the end, the ROI is high when he does both what he loves and what he's good at.
Let yourself have some fun, even if you think you might look like a fool. What other people think is unimportant. I has nothing to do with you. All that matters is that you keep yourself happy and continually progressing on your own path.
As they say in real estate, "A house is to be lived in, not looked at." You are the occupant of your own life; you have the supreme privilege of being happy in your home, without worrying about what the passers-by think.
Enjoy your journey!
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