When you do what you love, it's not a bad thing obviously. It’s fun, and exciting, and rewarding but it's hard to learn a lot from it.
It's comfortable, and enjoyable.
But you should be very nervous when you notice you're doing something comfortable or enjoyable for to long.
You might learn a lot about doing what you enjoy, but you don't learn a lot about yourself.
Conversely when you do something you hate.. that's when you find out who you are.
You have no choice but to learn about who you are.
When you do what you hate. And you push through and work hard at doing what you hate, you learn more about yourself more than you ever could doing what you love.
If you're unsure about what you should do for your career, get a job you hate. Go dig ditches, be a garbage man or woman, work in a cubicle. Figure out what job you really hate, and go get it. Don't be foolish and think all you'll be doing is wasting your time and be miserable. Realize all you will learn when you do what you hate and understand when you just keep doing what you enjoy that's when you're actually wasting your time. Because what are you finding out about yourself when you keep doing what's easy?
When you get a job you hate. You will spend everyday thinking about how much you hate that job. And thinking about what you truly want to do. You will also respect people so much more because you realize the pain of doing a difficult job. And most importantly when you leave that job you hate, you will work your ass off forever so you never have to go back to that job.
Too often we have ideas about what we want to do in life. Seems harmless. The problem is, if there are a list of things you are willing to do, this means there are a list of things you are unwilling to do. And who is to say what will help you get to your end goal and achieve a fulfilling life? Who knows what opportunities will lead you there. And what if that opportunity happens to be on your “unwilling to do” list? Just because it was difficult, you cut yourself off from the possibility of finding contentment, and living a fulfilling life. Especially if you are frustrated or unsure about your career, or you have a long “unwilling to do” list.. you have to find something difficult from your “unwilling to do” list and do that.
Unsure about your purpose in life?
Find a form of exercise you hate. And do it as often as possible. Running is the easy one. I hate running, but if you love it don't cheat, pick another form of suffering and do it everyday. My tip is to find an endurance exercise specifically, and ideally a lower impact one like swimming, rowing or biking. Anything else is too short and you don't ever move from the physical pain to the mental pain of doing what you hate. If you do hate running, and you run everyday you will figure out very quickly what your purpose is. Again, the key is the mental pain. It might be hard to run physically for fifteen minutes, but it’s a lot more difficult mentally to run for an hour and a half.
When you do a physical exercise that you hate, you're really doing a mental and emotional exercise.
Ask anyone who does endurance sports. If doing ten curls in the gym is physical exercise, then running 100 miles, or 50 miles, or even 5 miles for a workout sure as hell is mental battle. Not a physical one.
I'm all for finding what you love, and doing what you love to an extent.
But I understand that in order to find that great place, and stay there, you have to do what you hate.
You must endure through something that is difficult.
And today… life isn’t all that difficult, so you must be diligent in seeking out hard tasks and completing them regularly.
We aren’t searching for food constantly, hunting, running from danger, seeking and builder shelter so when our mind starts to realize our life isn’t very difficult anymore.. this is when you go into overdrive to create problems, you’re busy, feeling depressed, anxious, unsure what to do in life, you hate your job etc..
Pushing yourself physically of course has its benefits but we’re talking now about building mental strength, and emotional endurance.
Callus your mind each day by finding something you hate, and doing that.
Learn more on this:
Video: David Goggins
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