Don't Do What You Love; Love What You Do

Life’s too short to do sh*t you hate — but how can you do what you love without eventually hating it?

Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up every morning excited to go to work? No more dreading the alarm clock, office politics, or other nonsense you know all too well. Indeed, unfulfilling work is so common that we’re just as familiar with a centuries-old prescription to cure us of this misery:

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

But if that was so simple, why doesn’t everyone just do that? Better yet, why are many self-employed people as stressed and miserable as their salaried friends?

Simple: that advice sucks. Much like your “favorite” middle manager who expects you to give 110% effort while they barely give 5%, it serves no real purpose. Business gurus couch this quote as something profound when in reality, they have it backwards.

Now, I’m not suggesting you should be complacent. The trick is learning to enjoy the process of work rather than relying on the dopamine from getting the ideal result. Find a process you love and the rest is easy. But how do you do that?

I’ll show you.

The Trap of Doing What You Love

When I started my professional journey, I fell victim to that same non-advice. As a giant video game nerd, I knew I wanted to work in the video game industry, though I recognized the age-old adage was a bit off. I didn’t get a degree in game design because I already knew how grueling work was within the industry. Even when I was an IT major, I enjoyed programming but no amount of money could justify the hours and corporate nonsense.

Instead, I began a blog about indie game development and I loved it. I loved writing about games, reviewing them, and covering the latest Kickstarter projects.

But that love didn’t last.

Eventually I grew to hate writing reviews. I hated the erosion of journalistic integrity and, later on, the laziness of other outlets copy/pasting reddit discussions and ChatGPT regurgitating the latest hot gos in a tone that sounds almost human, trying to pass that off as content. The only way I could monetize what little traffic I had was by saturating the website with ads, something I refused to do.

But the worst part was I started to hate playing games. Every time I launched one, I’d feel guilty. I’d have all these ideas for content but had no motivation to create. When I did, I couldn’t just enjoy the game; it felt like a job I couldn’t escape.

That is what happens when you try to do what you love.

But I found the solution by asking these questions:

• What is pleasurable about the work I want to do?

• What is something I could do without getting bored?

• What is something people would pay me to do?

And so began my long journey to becoming an executive strategist.

While I enjoy writing, the real pleasure comes from teaching people and helping them rediscover their creative power. Whether it’s writing game strategy guides or small business development audits, giving people road maps to their goals is thrilling, especially as I watch the wheels turn in their heads as they smile, knowing their dreams can become reality.

While this work is stressful (I just finished a 22-page audit for one of my clients last week), the process of learning about a person, going through their analytics, and tying data to real-world application is always fascinating.

From the gaming side of things, I love interviewing members and leaders in my gaming community, finding patterns in their answers, and turning that insight into new ways to improve our platform.

These processes have resulted in a growing streams of income:

• For my executive strategy business, I’m paid monthly as a weekly/biweekly business consultant, professional coach, or accountability buddy. I also offer ad hoc services like strategy audits, resume writing, conversion rate optimization, and other resources people need to build their professional future.

• For my gaming community, some members pay for Discord subscriptions that give them exclusive access to content. There’s also merchandise and, once our YouTube channels get big enough, there’s potential for ad revenue.

Despite the stress (and there’s plenty of it) the ability to build my days the way I want, all these opportunities to learn new skills, getting to meet and help new people — that is what drives me down a path I love. The wins along the way just add to the fun of it all.

Rising to the Challenge

People often confuse enjoyment with how easy something is. I enjoy my work, but it isn’t easy. The Internet is filled with videos of people doing cool stuff: artists, athletes, experts in their field who create and do awesome things but make it seem effortless. They’re clearly passionate about it, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to achieve their level of mastery.

No matter what you want to do, it’s not about what you do, but how you go about doing it — and, more importantly, how you feel about doing it.

Athletes train daily; you don’t get a gold medal without years’ worth of pain reshaping your body to its task.

Artists practice daily; you don’t produce masterpieces without the thousands of hours understanding the basics of your preferred media and aesthetic.

Accepting that you’ll suck at the thing you want to do is the first step to becoming great at it. And it’s loving the process of getting there that sustains you.

While accumulating skills and learning about what you want to do is great, get comfortable with practicing and making mistakes.

If you want to get into ecommerce, set up a basic store and aim for that first sale.

If you want to get into streaming or making videos, focus on getting your first viewer, publishing your first video, or hitting “Go Live” for the first time.

If it doesn’t work, take time to explore why. Keep trying — something will eventually stick.

People expect success to be a sorta on/off switch, that you just decide you want to be successful, sprint in that direction, and if it doesn’t happen in a week, something bad must have happened or that you don’t deserve success.

It took me over a decade to get to where I’m at now, though there were plenty of milestones that showed me I was on the right path — but I could only appreciate them in hindsight.

This is why loving what you do is so important. This path is a long one that’s not easy, but you become stronger and more capable while finding many more reasons to enjoy it than wasting your life in a job you hate.

Not Everything Should Be Monetized

This might seem a bit contrarian given the rest of this post, but be careful about taking your favorite hobby and turning it into a career. Like I said, my own excitement to build something almost killed my love of gaming. Some pleasures in life should remain just that: things you can enjoy without any other reason. No profit, no appetite for anything aside from the simple act of doing.

There are plenty of influencers on social media who started by sharing their hobbies and eventually going viral. Some created multimillion dollar businesses, both intentionally and unintentionally, to their benefit and their dismay. While there are still plenty of others who just want to enjoy their hobbies and share them with others.

Ultimately, it’s on you to determine how you spend your time, what skills you want to cultivate, and how you want to make your living. The world is tough and today’s economy, even tougher. First focus on keeping your fridge full and a roof over your head. From there, give yourself a creative activity that you enjoy solely for its enjoyment.

By keeping that hobby of yours sacred, you can taste what it’s like to love doing something. Once you recognize that feeling, you can identify it in something that’s better suited as a professional calling.

What do you love to do for its own sake? Is it just a hobby or something you’d love to see grown into something more? Let me know in the comments. 👇️