One of the most interesting transitions I went through while I was a college student for over a decade involves the way I approach work. When I was starting out, I struggled to find the motivation to do the work – schoolwork, and even research as a graduate student. These were things that had to be done, but my goal was to get them out of the way as soon as possible so I could move on to something fun. Part way through graduate school, this struggle flipped: I had to actively try to stop working and go enjoy something else.
To this day, the challenge I face is convincing myself to stop working and live a balanced life.
Getting Hooked
During undergrad, schoolwork was always just an obstacle to fun. My friends and I wanted to go out, or play video games, or skip class to have margaritas at noon. We had a lot of fun, and getting the homework out of the way was the price of admission. We’d take road tips the weekend before finals. I think one of the crazier experiences was the night before my senior design presentation (a big moment in the life of an engineer) when I jumped in my buddy’s Cessna and flew to North Carolina for a Jimmy Buffett concert. We barely made it back in time (I got dressed in the back seat as we sped across campus to the presentation).
Things changed quickly in grad school. I had more responsibility, and longer timelines. Rather than working on things that were due next week, I was working on things that were due months, or even years later. Lack of progress meant lack of funding – me losing my full-ride plus salary. That’s a strange kind of fear to work under. There was always this nebulous monster just out of sight, demanding a little more work gets done “so I could graduate.”
Justifying the Means
For the majority of graduate school, I worked extreme hours. I’d wake up early, head to the lab and get some research done, go to class, homework, more research… eventually going home far after dark (and usually after midnight). I remember thinking that this was the only way to finish in a reasonable amount of time. This is the hardest part of grad school: you have a singular goal and you know that it all hinges on you doing the work.
I reached a point where I had a twinge of guilt every time I left the lab to go home – rather than celebrating the day’s progress, I spent the drive home envisioning the finish line moving farther away because I had stopped working.
Before I knew it, I was a full-fledged workaholic – addicted to the idea of progress by any means necessary. No more fun. No more pouring into relationships. I’d tell Nicole (my girlfriend at the time, wife now) that “it’d all be worth it when I finished.” I’m still trying to understand how I reached a place where it takes self-discipline for me to stop working – that seems backwards.
Finding Balance
Things came to a head a few years into grad school. Over time, most of our friends graduated and moved on, yet Nicole and I remained. It got lonelier and lonelier. I hid from it at work, making things that much worse for her. Eventually our relationship was so strained that we started drifting apart. I’ll never forget the first time I realized she didn’t care if I joined her for an outing – she’d reached the point where she was that used to me being gone.
The redemption story will have to wait for another day. Long story short this was the wakeup call that drove me to start learning about time management and ultimately develop my own mindset that I’ve been calling Intentional Living ever since. I started forcing myself to go home at dinner time. I started forcing myself to take weekends off. Oddly, I became more productive. I think it was a combination of being well-rested and learning to focus during the time I was working.
The Ends
As a student, graduation is this amazing pinnacle goal – the shining moment we’re working harder for than anything in our life. Now I know, graduation comes and goes (for some of us multiple times, lol). Every destination in life is simply a punctuation mark – an instant barely remembered compared to the journey it took to get there.
What I’ve learned is that goals serve as a compass: they point the way for us to walk. But life isn’t spent at the destinations, it’s spent between them as we journey on. I learned that HOW I do something is far more important than WHAT I get done. I often wonder if all those extra hours in the lab actually moved me forward at all. I took 7 years to complete grad school. Would it have been 8? 9? I doubt it.
Conclusion
I still have goals. Big ones. I want to change the world, and that doesn’t happen without hard work. When people watch from the outside, they still see a hyper-productive productivity geek – I have a lot of projects going on these days. I think the one I am most proud of is the career development workshop that I’m developing for the Intentional Academy. I started this project in November 2018 thinking it would be a 6-8 week effort. For the old me, it would have been. But now I know that HOW I make the course is more important than getting it done. So I work on it for the number of hours that I budget in my week while I still invest in my health, my spirit, my relationships, and my work. Slowly but surely this project takes form and I am almost done. When I look back on it, I’ll be proud not only of what I produced, but that I was able to produce it without asking my kids to sacrifice time with their daddy, and Nicole time with her partner.
I added 2 pages to the workbook today, in addition to writing this blog post. Now I’m headed with my family up to the mountains for a half day of rock climbing. I’ll make it to the office this afternoon for a few meetings, and then get home for dinner.
The journey is what matters. Journey well.
PS The workshop really is almost ready. We’re showing people my process for turning 25 applications into 25 interviews (that 100%) and ultimately how to land your dream job. If you’d like to learn more about it, sign up below!
