It’s such easy advice to give. Easy advice to follow, too, unless you’re talking about work. When it comes to work many people find they aren’t doing what they love or aren’t doing enough of what they love. The question is: why not?
The answer is: because we don’t spend enough time thinking about what we hate.
How can thinking about what we hate doing lead to spending more time doing what we love doing? Easy. When most of us think about building a career or a business around what we love doing, we start by identifying what we love to do. For most of us, that’s easy. It’s just a list of our hobbies. This is where most of us make the mistake of asking “how can I make a living at doing this?’ The truth is, how you make a living doing what you love is irrelevant at this point because even if you know the answer something is still standing in your way or you’d be doing it, not reading this. Which is why, after you’ve identified the things you love your next step should be identifying the things you hate.
Yes, hate. Not dislike. Not prefer not to do. Not don’t know how to do or don’t think you can do. Hate.The things that you absolutely will not do…unless someone is paying you very big bucks to do it. These are the things that are keeping you from doing what you love because, at some level, we all realize that to build a successful career or business doing what we love we’re going to have to do some things we hate. The artist is going to have to balance the books. The CPA is going to have to market their firm. The software programmer is going to have to make sales. The salesperson is going to have to teach others to use a product. Have you figured out why you need to know what you hate yet?
That’s right: once you know what you hate, you know who to look for and what’s standing in your way. Chances are there is someone out there who loves doing the very thing that you despise. They may even be willing to do it for you, either in exchange for you doing something they hate for them or for monetary compensation. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Both parties get to do something they love and they remove one of the roadblock standing in the way of doing more of what you love. Find enough people who love doing what you hate and hate doing what you love and not only are you doing more of what you love, you may even have discovered how to make a living doing it!
Do what you love. It’s such simple advice. As long as you know what you hate.
