3 Things keeping you from work you’ll love
How do we end up in miserable careers and dodge our life’s work?
I believe that everyone has the capacity to find work they enjoy. But I think most get stuck on a path and are afraid to jump off.
From early in life, there’s talk about what we’re going to be when we grow up.
For many as they grow older, their dreams are devoured by the tyranny of should and external expectations.
This is an attempt to shine a light on thinking patterns that might be holding you back.
Shadow Careers
Shadow careers are when we do something around the field we want to be in. Steven Pressfield dubs them metaphors for our real careers.
Washington, DC is full of staffers, pundits and consultants that secretly wish they were politicians.
Hollywood is full of agents, publicists and paparazzi that secretly wish they were actors or actresses.
Shadow careers come in all shapes and sizes. Book agents that want to be writers. Journalists that want to be feature writers.
Instead of going for what they want, they settle for proximity to what they want. In DC, they’re settling for proximity to power. In LA, they’re settling for proximity to fame. It’s close enough to the game they convince themselves they’re in it.
When you encounter these people, you can’t help but notice a bit of resentment. A bitterness towards the people they want to be. The staffer complaining about the boss. The tech journalist attacking the successful CEO.
Shadow careers aren’t necessarily chosen intentionally or a bad thing. They can be a guide to work we’ll enjoy.
You might even be a top performer in your shadow career. That doesn’t mean you can’t leave it behind for more gratifying work.
Sometimes, we’re climbing the wrong hill. Don’t let the fear of wasted time stop you from starting anew. The time is going to pass either way. You may as well pass it in the arena.
The Imaginary Audience
The second thing that keeps us stuck is the fear of other people’s opinions.
In 1967 the psychologist David Elkind coined the term, “imaginary audience.” It’s when you feel like your actions are the focus of other people’s attention.
You’re falling victim to the imaginary audience when your reasons for not pursuing a change being with, I want to do X, but everyone thinks of me as Y. Or when you don’t make a change because it would be, “off-brand.”
David Foster Wallace hits on this imaginary audience in his infamous graduation speech, This is Water:
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor.
We don’t often talk about this false belief. It’s so wired into us that most don’t realize it’s there. Most don’t realize it’s a problem. And many are convinced they’re the exception. That they are being watched. That they are being idolized. Social media has made everyone a star.
But think about it in reverse. Think of the mindless scrolling you do in a day on social media. Its more an automatic, time killing habit – you’re definitely not watching your friend’s story of them on the couch with their dog for the 10th day in a row out of admiration and awe for the way they live their life.
You do it without thinking about it and forget about it 10 seconds later as you leap into what another friend is eating for lunch.
Understand: No one is thinking that much about you. There is no audience. You’re not the exception to the rule. Let that free you to make decisions without thinking about how others will react.
Our Ideas vs. Reality
We get attached to the idea of a career and ignore the reality of it.
I’ve fallen victim to this. I first wanted to be a journalist because I thought it meant I’d be on TV spouting my brilliant opinions. I’d write articles taking down the corrupt powers that be and spend my evenings sipping bourbon with “sources” that would hand me my next big break.
Then I started doing the job. I learned that what journalists actually do is sit in cubicles surrounded by 30 other people just like them writing 10 shitty articles a day that are based on a headline and driving traffic.
Then I fell into the idea of working for politicians. This was fun for a while, especially working on campaigns. But the days became predictable and automated.
House of Cards and The West Wing paint grand images of amazing dinners, great suits, and power. What working in politics really is, is eating free pizza, answering your phone whenever it rings and choosing between groceries or happy hour.
I again fell for the idea I had in my head of a career and ignored what the job would entail. A lot of my work was mind numbing.
I had important responsibilities like writing constituent letters explaining there was nothing we could do about DirectTV dropping the weather channel, or carrying folders to a committee room my boss was sitting in.
This isn’t to knock on people doing hard work or all the great people I met during my time in politics. But it’s an example of the idea of something not reflecting what you’ll be doing daily.
When thinking about new opportunities, ask yourself - what does my day look like if I choose this path? Your actual day, not the glamorized vision in your head.
Using Your Experiences as a Guide
You don’t deserve to be punished for not knowing exactly what you wanted to do when you were 20. But you’re punishing yourself once you know you’re miserable and you do nothing to change your circumstances.
These career misses have useful signs wrapped within them. I hated journalism, but I knew I liked to write. I enjoyed when my articles got attention because it was cool to see a reaction to something I created.
In politics, I loved ghost writing op-eds or creating mail pieces that riled up our opponents.
Later in consulting, I enjoyed explaining complex tactics or issues in simple terms.
Use your experiences as a guide as you move forward. What kind of opportunity would let me do more of what I enjoy and less of what drains me?
This newsletter is a result of me combining my enjoyment of writing, teaching what I learn and listening to reactions from the readers. I’m slowly combining the things I enjoy and slowly sidestepping the things I don’t.
So, if you’re in a shadow career, what do you like about it? What is it bringing you close to, that you might want to do? And if the imaginary audience has been holding you back, what from? What can you pursue now that you’re free of these imagined expectations?
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Thanks for reading,
Bates