Do what you truly want | Daily #166
It always sounds cliché, but it is true. If you want to do great work, you can only do it if you truly want it as well. You can't do that if you keep thinking about switching careers or even colleagues.
But this advice gets executed the wrong way almost all the time.
I think people use this advice just to do something else to escape their other thing. Usually, video gamers are the best representation of this. They don't really want to play video games 24/7, but it allows them to escape their real-life problems.
You start something else and usually, it is new. So it is usually easy to complete the first few steps. Then you get dopamine but you are succeeding in something new. Then you think that this is something you truly want to do. You pursue it, study for it, learn it, experience it, and later practice the profession and operate the domain. But then after a few years, you get back to the same starting point.
You won't escape your job cause you think it is boring, or blame it on other aspects, but ultimately you just weren't truly interested in it enough. You were just getting dopamine cause completing amateur tasks made you feel good. But you were never truly interested in it. You realize that it was never your purpose.
Avoid this. Do something you truly want. Use your brain. Ask yourself questions like:
- Can I do this for the next 10-20 years?
- Do I get satisfaction when I do the extremely complex stuff in the domain?
- Do I want this to be part of my legacy?
- Do I truly enjoy it even when I fail at some tasks?
- Probably even more questions
Find out what you truly want to do. If you know and put in the hours you will do great work. I will promise that.