Does Your Work Seem Like Practice?

Does your work seem like practice?

I do believe this question means everything when it comes to finding the career path we are meant for. I'll try to explain and share some inspiration I've found.

I'm always looking at the wake behind me to figure out what might influence the path ahead.

I think my status quo (current path) came from the constant introspection of my joys in life, my skills, and forgetting about what society sees as the proper path in life. If what I am saying strikes a cord with you, you MUST check this series out by Chase Jarvis called 30 Days of Genius discussing how we find our purpose, and more importantly, how we cultivate it. It is NOT just for "creative" professions...it applies to everyone.

Let's get back to the whole "practice" thing.

Thinking about your own life, how often do you associate "practice" with something you didn’t want to do? If you practiced free throws or played that song on your guitar, chances are you wanted to do it. You wanted to get better at it. That’s why you called it practice—because you know it’s an investment of time that you didn’t mind spending because you knew it would pay off in the future some way or another.

As children, “practice” camouflaged “work”. We didn’t “work" as kids because we were practicing and not getting paid. Then, we become adults, get paid to work and suddenly we lose site of practice and the benefits that stem from it. We lose control of what we want to practice. Work often replaces practice, and this can be bad.

You can imagine, then, if your day-to-day work doesn’t feel like practice, then the energy you are investing may not get you to what you want long-term, at least in terms of your ultimate skill you want to achieve.

Let's keep in mind your current work may not be an immediate pre-step to the master skill you want in your life, and that’s okay. Some skills require several "mini" skillsets that create a foundation for the ulitimate one. You could be in customer service right now because one day when you have your own business, you’ll need to make your clients happy and you need to practice delivering bad news. This is one of many skills necessary for what it will take for a start-up.

Practice can be mindless and repetitive sometimes, but for some reason we let ourselves do it. We love it and hate it at times, but because there’s something within us that wants the end result from the time we put in doing it, we continue on. When we are practicing at work, we are pouring in effort that will pay off in the long run. The days become more meaningful as we see our skill improve. The moments we realize that all the time vested was worth it becomes more abundant. The momentum takes us even further.

If your work doesn’t seem like practice, then what are you really working for every day? Are you simply wasting time?

Well, you certainly don't have much time to waste.