Channeling Hard Work Into a Life You Love
“The grind” is having a moment. A bad one.
It’s become common knowledge, especially among us artistic types, that “the grind” is the enemy of creativity, freedom, & even productivity. And sure, I can get behind the idea of sloughing off my long-time motto, “You should be doing more!” But I’ve found that the tangible result of this anti-grind moment is, at best, middling.
Taking up the mantle of despising the grind is all good in theory. I can rage against it in my personal life, discourage its presence in my business, decry it on social media. But being anti-grand doesn’t mean I can (or want to) escape the necessity of hard work.
Further (& maybe more importantly), camping out in the anti-grind doesn’t automatically translate into a life I love.
I think I’d rather plant my flag on another hill; instead of being anti-anything, I’d prefer to be pro-something. And I think where I’ll go pro is here: channeling my hard work into a life that I love. Because I enjoy hard work. I don’t enjoy self-flagellation, but watching a MONSTER CONTRACT come through because I’ve put in my 10,000 hours? Gimme that all day, every day.
So here’s my five step how-to on channeling hard work into a life you love:
Put in your 10,000 hours. Natural talent & luck aren’t enough to get you to financial success, strong brand identity, or top-of-your-field skills. You have to train, embrace discipline, & practice diligence. It’ll be tedious. You’ll have to do these things without any guarantee of success. You’ll have to glory in the sweaty, gritty, “sit down & do the damn work” of it all. No promises, no guarantees. Just hour after hour.
When the door opens, RUN through it. At some point during your 10,000 hours, a door will open. It’s incredibly unlikely that it’ll be the one you expect. Approximately 80% of my first 10,000 hours were aimed at being a professional stage actor. The incredible success I’ve had as a voiceover actor wasn’t on my radar during those hours - because I didn’t know what voiceover acting was. But when I sensed that door starting to open, I didn’t shuffle. I launched myself through that door, because I had put in enough of those hours to build a rock-solid sense of intuition & a nose for opportunity that could out-weasel a weasel.
As your success snowballs, lean into discomfort. If you’ve heard this once, you’ve heard it a thousand times, but - if you think success means arrival, you’re dead wrong. Success is a shortcut to discomfort. I never knew how little I knew about business until my business started to succeed beyond my wildest dreams. I never knew how much baggage I had around money until I started to make lots of it. I never knew how much I was getting in my own way until I absolutely hamstrung my progress with self-doubt. If you avoid discomfort, you will avoid growth & success. So lean in on every front you can - not just in your mental game, but in your whole life. Ride motorcycles, travel alone, learn stuff your parents never taught you, take up a new hobby, jump back in the dating pool, grow your own food. Do whatever you want, but make sure you’re regularly uncomfortable.
Look back & celebrate. The human brain is incredibly adaptive. That means, as you grow, your brain is remarkably fast at turning an “I could never do that” into an “You should be way beyond this now.” So, for the love of Pete, take a second. Look back at how far you’ve come. Relentlessly celebrate your efforts, because there will never come a point at which you feel you’ve arrived. Let me say that again: there will never come a point at which you feel you’ve arrived. No matter the size of the contract, the amount in your bank account, the miles you’ve run - there will always be another horizon. So pour your inner critic a glass of champagne, raise a toast, & be proud of yourself.
Finally, reinvest. Whether it’s money, time, or energy, use the profits of your hard work to reinvest in your life. This requires you to come back, again & again, to what you love. The rabidness you used to achieve success must now be applied to the things you love…or else, what’s it all for? If you’ve forgotten what you love, think about your 15-year-old self. Shuffle some money, time, or energy their way. In this way, the results of your hard week start to feed something more than the machine, the endless list of “should”s, or the imaginary post-retirement years. They feed your life, which grows & expands as you do. They feed your people, which is where true fulfillment lies. And they feed your passion, which is why you started all this in the first place.
