My 7 Principles Towards Progress (Part II)

4. What gets you up in the morning (Do what you love)

One of the things we tend to put aside when making career decisions is our desire for what we are doing; many times we consider only the salary¹, the title & prestige, the "coolness" factor of our company, etc. Not to say that these things are not important, but these things offer temporary boost to our inner drive to learn, to improve, and to strive for excellence.

Doing what you love is a feeling truly unique. It is doing something that gets you up from bed in the morning without hesitation and second thoughts, it is your larger purpose in your professional life, and it is the thing that makes you feel you have your impact in this world through your work. This feeling offers a long-term boost to your inner desire to do what you do in the best way possible. It is an energy transmitted to all directions that is contagious and can make others better as well. Also, it helps create an emotional state that can help with off-work activities too.

Unfortunately, I have observed several people who stayed at or left a job for the wrong reasons, because they did not pay attention to the principle of "what gets you up in the morning". Therefore, I tell people that is ok to acknowledge that they are doing something they do not care about, and then consider what would make them truly happy. Keep in mind that work takes 40hrs each week (theoretically at least), which is ~25% of most of our adult life (note: only sleep takes more time than that). This is a considerable investment and we should make sure to get the most out of it.

5. It is an ultra-marathon and not a sprint (Pace yourself)

When you do something you love it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to do as much of that as possible. This is not a bad thing, but balance is always required. Most people, especially younger people out of school, tend to operate under the impression that work is just another set amount of years of college or grad school, but the reality is very far from that. Our work lives may be 30 or 40 years long and we have to play the long game.

Burning ourselves out for 1 or 2 months may require as much time to properly recover, aside the fact that continuously stressing ourselves can and will have negative impact on our physical and mental health. I have fallen multiple times into that trap and I gained a lot in the short term, but I did pay a hefty price.

Therefore, it is critical to understand that we are not running a sprint, but an ultra-marathon. Yes, we do need to be moving fast, but we have to learn to pace ourselves and make small and robust steps towards that goal instead of short bursts that push us far for just a short period of time, but drain all our energy and desire to continue.

6. I will always learn (Self-improvement)

We live in a world that changes incredibly fast and we all see the results of that every day. On top of that, the rate of change is also accelerating and there is no indication that this will stop. This makes it abundantly clear that what we know now may hold its value for a limited amount of time and there have been surveys from different organizations and companies that are clear about that, namely, we will have to change our jobs every 5-7 years and redefine ourselves.

On the other side of the same coin there is the EQ (aka soft skills) piece. Unfortunately, very few learning institutions help the students improve in that area, but there is a strong trend in the industry to help the employees (and the employers for that matter) get better at this, e.g., improve their self awareness, their communication, their collaboration, etc.

As we can see, there are two major areas of skills, the so-called hard skills (e.g., coding, math, language, science, etc.) and the soft-skills. Both areas need continuous grooming, expansion, and cultivation to stay relevant. This is not a good-to-have anymore, this is necessary and we have to learn to be flexible, because it is not only that we have to get accustomed to change, we have to get accustomed to the idea that the rate of change is also volatile.

The best way to deal with that is by continuous learning and self-improvement. To that end, and for the combination of item 5 & 6 in this list, I want to emphasize the need of grit; there are multiple sources, like the great book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth.

7. Opportunity cost (Learn how to prioritize and understand the risk)

This last principle is a bit controversial, because one can argue it goes against principles 5 and 6, the "It is an ultra-marathon and not a sprint" and "I will always learn", respectively. What I mean by opportunity cost is, what are you going to sacrifice by saying "No" to something and "Yes" to something else. In this case I argue that the "Yes" should be said at almost everything that comes your way regarding your work and "No" to almost anything else of similar function.

For example, let's assume that your work is on a particular technology, C++ coding in this case (note: again, this is just an example) and you have the opportunity to spend an extra 2 hours 3 times a week to either dig deeper into your work or acquire a different skill like Machine Learning. My argument here, and the approach that I used, is to focus your time mostly on the directly work-related item and not on something different, even if that something different may seem cool or a technology for the future.

So, why is this argument controversial? First, I mention above that you have an extra 6 hours each week to use and that you should devote that time to your work, which is somewhat against principle #5. Second, I mention that you should not learn something necessarily new, but you should focus more on your direct work, which is, again somewhat, against principle #6. My rationale here, however, can be in alignment with both principles if applied in a specific way where some assumptions hold.

So, below I am dissecting this principle a bit more:

• •One assumption here is that you want to progress in your current role. If your goal is to change role or function, then your opportunity cost will be different, in which case you should focus your energy on your top priority accordingly.

• •Another assumption is that you have this extra time to spare and that time can be devoted to an area of interest related to work. If this is your only free time, then I encourage you to not expend the effort towards work, but to find ways and maintain a balanced life. It is important to separate your life from your work and it is something I learned the hard way.

• •Spending more time on work-related items can actually mean that you will learn new things. We would be extremely foolish to think that we know everything about our work. First, we can always get better and more efficient at what we do, i.e., improve vertically, and second, we can always expand our horizons and explore the neighboring functional areas, i.e., improve laterally. This type of learning can have double impact, both to our overall knowledge base and directly to our work.

This last principle is, in my opinion, the most tricky of all, because assessing the opportunities and their related costs is an extremely tough challenge. But I am confident that each and every one of us will do our due diligence to find that out.