Does Your Job Keep You Up in the Daytime?

In reading Sarah Needleman’s blog post Does Your Job Keep You Up at Night? in the Wall Street Journal online, I had to ask the opposite. What does that mean exactly? Simply take the converse: if work stress might keep you up in the night, do you find your work enticing enough to keep you mind active and passionate about what you do in the daytime?

Think about it before you automatically respond with “No.” That negative response has become almost an autonomic response in these days of general stress: it comes out of the mouth before we even think about it. In a way it may also be socially unacceptable to not say ‘No’ when those around you may not be as into their own work.

What I am speaking off is not just engagement, but passion. What’s the difference? Simply said, disengaged is ‘Not liking it’, actively disengaged is equivalent to ‘Hating it, and engaged equals ‘Like it.’ Yet, I see a difference between simply liking a position and really loving what you do.

Productivity and business management thinkers like Gary Hamel (in his newest work, What Matters Now?), Dan Pink (Drive), and John Hagel & John Seely-Brown (The Power of Pull) indicate passion as a significant factor to innovation, and excellence. Passion is that internal drive that has us working towards goals, through all the troubles, pains, and obstacles. We sometimes even call the results of such passion, miraculous when we see action that astounds us. (Can you tell I watched War Horse last night?)

So, let’s get back to the question: What keeps you up in the Day?

I do mean truly aware – in the Zen context – rather than simply awake. Per Jocelyn Gliel’s post in the 99% blog, what really matter is not extrinsic motivation (either the carrot, or the stick, I should add), but intrinsic motivation.

“If we can imagine an achievement, see ourselves progressing toward that goal, and understand that we are gaining new skills and knowledge, we will be driven to do great work.”

My co-researchers and I in our IBM Institute for Business Value study, Collective Intelligence: Capitalizing on the Crowd, we have pointed to intrinsic motivation as well as a strong factor to drive not just individual work but collective crowdsourcing.

I don’t think there’s a single formula for creating passion, but Gliel’s statement points out some key elements, to which I’d add some points:

1. imagining an achievement – envisioning target goal(s)
2. taking immediate inventory – what comes to mind immediately that can help you to achieve it
3. progressing towards that goal – working at a pace towards it, experimenting, failing, involving others

That last step relates most closely to our question. Creative work cannot be assigned regular periodicity; we do not write down in a recurring entry of when to be creative. But as per words of wisdom from author Stephen King, “force yourself to just sit down and write something [do some work] every day.” I’ve done the same for my own past book writing even when I didn’t feel the energy. What that does is help you practice and keep the goal alive in your mind, which in turn keeps fueling the passion.

Readers: What have you found that keeps you up in the day and drive your passion? What practical techniques (beyond conceptual ideas) help?

You can also reach me on Twitter: @rawn if you want to chat on ideas.