Are you in-joy-ing your work?
Welcome to the ArtsBound Newsletter. Every Tuesday, I share three thoughts or insights meant to help performing arts students and young professionals flourish in their life and career. Because design thinking often requires challenging assumptions, today we’re taking a closer look at words we often use when we talk about our careers: 1) career success; 2) work we enjoy; and 3) topics we find interesting.
- 4-minute read -
(NOTE: I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.)
1. What it means to be successful.
Success is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the self-development world. At some point, we’ve all probably been captivated by a title like “How to be Successful… etc”.
When you google the definition of ‘success’ you get this:
When I read this, two important points come up for me.
First, purpose is a prerequisite for success. Success is the trophy you receive for scoring a goal. Without the act of scoring the goal, the trophy is meaningless.
Chasing success without knowing without a greater purpose is just as meaningless
Second, success is a one-time occurence. We can be successful at something, but then we must move onto the next thing. This is why I don’t love phrases such as, “He’s had a successful career”. Your career encompasses such a great span of time, and ‘success’ feels like such a finite term.
Long-term readers know that one of my personal missions is to shine light on the shallow incentives that hijack our creativity. I think success is one of them. In a culture obsessed with success, it is easy to lose sight of your purpose.
I’m not suggesting that we stop using the word altogether (I do lots of writing about career-related topics, and sometimes ‘success’ is the best word for a given idea), but I do suggest we might be more careful with how we use it.
I have successful days and successful projects. But I will never consider myself to be successful, because as long as I am drawing breath, I’ve yet to accomplish my purpose.
2. Work you enjoy
We all want work we enjoy. But what does that mean?
Here’s the etymology of ‘enjoy’:
When I think about what the word ‘joy’ means to most people, I feel like the word ‘enjoy’ has taken on somewhat of a bland meaning.
Enjoier is a verb - to give, or fill with joy.
But if we break the word down even further - en joie, or ‘in joy’ - we get a state of being. To be ‘in joy’ is what I mean when I say that you are meant to live in the flow of your unique creative energy.
Understanding this brings a whole new meaning to ‘work we enjoy’. Are you experiencing that flow?
3. Topics we find interesting
One more… the etymology of ‘interesting’:
Two words stick out to me: ‘important’ and ‘between’. This leads naturally to our understanding of interest in the financial world - it implies the crucial matter of a relationship between two or more people.
This leads me to say that, while determining what work will give you joy, finding areas of shared significance with others is also crucial. First of all, this will ensure that you get paid for your work. But I also see life as a collective experience and that our work is only consummated when it elevates the life experience of others.
It’s a bit paradoxical, but so many important life lessons are.
If you are still hunting for a sense of purpose or work that sparks joy for you, working with a coach can help. Feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear your story.
See you next week!
Lee
PS - I started ArtsBound because I believe the world would be a better place with more people living their true calling. If you know a student or young professional who is searching for their niche in the performing arts world, consider forwarding this email to them. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up to receive my newsletter every Tuesday. It's free, and I’ll never share or sell your data.