Working for Everyone but Ourselves

One morning, after years of trying different motivational tricks, I asked myself:

What if swimming were part of my job, andsomeone was paying me to do it? 

I thought about all the tedious, unpleasant, arduous things I had done over the course of my life for work and money. That got me wondering:

Why is it so much easier to do hard things that benefit others than it is to do hard things that benefit ourselves?

We get up to catch the redeye business flight no matter how exhausted we are.

Stay up all night to finish someone else's project.

Stoically sit through endless hours of irrelevant, mind-numbing, soul-sucking meetings. 

Yet somehow we can’t manage to do things like exercise, eat well, and meditate despite how much we say we want to and need to and benefit from doing such things. 

Why?

I think part of the answer lies in our often dysfunctional relationship to money. 

Sometimes the roots of this relationship are obvious. For example, both of my parents were born in the Great Depression and grew up poor. Like many people from these circumstances, even after they became financially secure as adults, money remained a constant source of fear and anxiety and sacrifice.

My dad always bought the cheapest version of everything. My mom continued cutting out tiny coupons well into her 80’s. They never seemed to enjoy the money they saved over the course of their often pathologically frugal lifetimes, or appreciate the security it was supposed to provide. 

I’ve only recently begun to realize the extent to which my relationship to money has mirrored that of my parents. All those opportunities I didn't take, simple things that I didn’t buy, and foolish things I did in order to save or make money. All that fear and anxiety and sacrifice! In retrospect I can clearly see that most of this was unnecessary, unhealthy, and counterproductive. 

In my work with people navigating things like career transitions and burnout, I often see very similar patterns. Many successful professionals will also do almost anything for work and money. And yet, when it comes to doing things for themselves, it’s often just too hard, not that important, or there simply is not enough time.

It's almost as though we've collectively decided that work deserves our prioritization and discipline, but our own wellbeing does not. 

Since realizing all this, when I'm struggling to do something I know is good for me, I often pretend it's part of my job, and that I just have to do it.

It may sound silly, but it’s surprisingly effective. 

And oddly enough, when I take better care of myself, I’m a better person (just ask my wife!), and I do better work for everyone else.

It also makes it much easier to get out of that warm bed and into that cold pool.