I had a conversation with a good friend yesterday. He has a renovation going on and is quite involved in the process. He lamented about how busy he is and said something interesting to me. To summarize:
‘I don’t mind being busy, it just gets exhausting always doing things a little beyond what you are comfortable with.’
That’s a really interesting point. We live in a world where very few people, athletes for example, hone their skills and spend a tremendous amount of time doing only what they are good at. Most people are good at something and spend hours doing something else, scrambling to make time for the thing(s) they enjoy doing.
They love the design process, but spend most of their time building. They love building but spend most of their time ordering supplies and managing people. The love managing people but spend hours managing paper or digital files and documents. Beyond these examples, they spend time learning new, more challenging tasks and implementing them with beginner eyes, while not doing the things they know they can do well.
I understood my friend’s point and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to focus on the part of your job you are really good at for a while and not always be working on new challenging skills?’ Then we both had a chuckle realizing that we’d feel like we’d be standing still if we didn’t push ourselves. But that’s the impetus to ask the question,
Where does the push to always be improving come from?
Is it intrinsic? Is it organizational? Is it cultural? Are there places where jobs have not magnified in complexity and people are given the time they need to mostly do the things they love doing, and not just a lot of what they have to do? That doesn’t mean they stop improving, just that the things they improve on are things they really want to be doing. The idea of constantly improving is both appealing and exhausting. I think the key to making it feel good is to find reasons to celebrate achievements, to recognize gains, and to appreciate the journey… because there are always ways to improve… always more that can be done… always things to learn.
Good question — interesting to think about. I wonder if the push to improve on the things one doesn’t enjoy as much leads to not enough time for where they really want be/to push themselves = burnout? Workplaces might benefit from reflecting on this, if they don’t already, as well as those planning their careers to find a good fit.
Good question about burnout. It’s hard to find that balance between enjoying what you like doing and the ‘wanting’ and/or ‘needing’ to do more.
Wanting -> self-inflicted
Needing -> work-inflicted