Being Able to Ask “What’s Next?” Is a Sign You Are Happy in Your Work
During the Born for This tour, people would occasionally ask how you know when you have your dream job. It was an easy setup for a joke: “If you have to ask, ‘Am I happy?’ you probably aren’t.”
Still, even when you’re satisfied in your work, it’s nice to get reinforcement of that fact from time to time. There are several big and little signs that can provide that reinforcement:
- At the end of the day, you experience the feeling of knowing that today matters
- You work towards a long-term goal while still appreciating the present
- You generally look forward to the morning or whenever you begin your work
Here’s another one that I’ve been pondering lately. When you finish a task or project, do you experience a sense of accomplishment—or do you only feel relief?
For me, I know I’m in the flow zone when I wrap something up and then move on to the next one—sometimes right away and sometimes after a brief break, but never a long one.
There’s an old saying, “If you love your work, you’ll never work a day.” I think that’s a little overstated. You’ll probably end up with at least some days where you have to work on things you don’t love. And since when was “work” the enemy in the first place? The goal is to do better work, not less work.
Still, the goal for me is that when I finish one project, I take on another. I experience the satisfaction of accomplishment, but I look forward to the process of building something else just as much.
So… what’s next?
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Image: NeXT
