Part 3: How to Do What You Love & Love What You Do

Discover how you can take steps toward doing what you love in this article from career coach Suzanne Currier.

Do what you love and love what you do—life is too short (and too long)—not to! Like any good thing in life, doing what you love is a process, and it takes WORK. Sorry, no magic wands here.

From my experience, the journey to doing what you love occurs in 3 phases:

1. Gain clarity. Gain clarity about you. Take time to uncover your values, what lights you up at work, strengths, personality, etc.

2. Pick up. Add more of the things that DO align with who you are and who you want to be.

3. Let go. Let go of the things that DON’T bring you joy and align with your values.

In previous articles, I talked about how to get clarity as well as how to pick up more of the things you love to do. 

In this article, I want to focus on phase 3 – letting go of the things that don’t align!

After completing phase 1 – getting clarity – you have a direction to move towards.

In phase 2 – pick up - you started picking up and adding more of the work you love to your everyday life. This creates excitement, builds momentum, and fills your time with energizing activities. 

Let’s get into phase 3 – letting go. This is where you begin to let go of things that don’t align with what you enjoy, where you’re going, or what you value. 

Now that you’re using more of your limited time, energy, and attention on what you love, you have less for other things. Something has to give. It’s time to let go of things that don’t align with your clarity, direction, values, interests, or passions.

Here’s what that looked like for me.

During phase 1 of my personal journey, I learned that I love helping others be successful. I was really interested and passionate about the topic of people leadership and employee engagement. This clarity led me to pick up volunteering work, learning activities, and project work which aligned to these interests and passions. 

With these new things on my plate, I had to let go of others. Some were small, easy things like marketing project meetings that I no longer had time for or interest in contributing to. Others were bigger, like my career vision as a marketing executive leader, which no longer served me. 

Where can you start?

Start by answering this question: What is one thing that you’re investing time, energy or resources on that doesn’t align with where you’re going, what you’re interested in, or what you value? Just one thing. Then ask yourself these questions:

• What would you gain by letting it go?
• What would be hard about letting it go?
• Who would you have to be to let it go?
  
  

Here are some examples to get you thinking:

• Activity: Is there a project or a task that you’ve signed up to work on and deliver that really doesn’t align with where you’re interested in going?
• Energy & Strengths: Is there something that drains your energy but someone else could excel at and enjoy more? 
• Expectation: Is there an expectation from you or someone else that you keep doing something that you know you need to let go of?
• Time: Are you spending time on things that don’t align with your values? 
• Should: What is a ‘should’ you’ve put on yourself that you could benefit from letting go of? Is there a high expectation or unreasonable stress you place on yourself that if you let go of, could really serve you well?

So what’s the one thing - that doesn’t align with where you’re going- that you can let go of? What will you gain by doing so?

I’d love to hear from you, drop me an email and let me know what you’re going to add to your week! If you’re stuck and you’re not sure, let me know. I’m happy to brainstorm together.