Finding our good work in the marble

redefining work and giving voice to our intuition

photo cred: Derry

Recently, I hosted a Fireside Chat with my friend,

Paul Millerd

, at The Commons in celebration of his new book, Good Work. Paul embodies the spirit of the pathless path and serves as a reference point of what it looks like to break free from a conventionally alluring path in pursuit of his greatest ambitions and aligning with work that matters most to him.

As I read Good Work and prepped for our conversation, I reflected on how my relationship with work continues to evolve and the stories I hold about what it means to do good work.

In the US, it’s common to seek legibility through what we do for work. When we introduce ourselves to strangers, one of the first questions we ask one another is “What do you do?” Not “what do you do” in the sense of how do you spend your time or what curiosities are you chasing, but what’s your role in contributing to our economy? Of all the identities we hold, presenting ourselves as productive workers has become the quickest way for others to gauge who we are and for us to gain approval.

As a result, we derive our self-worth from the titles we hold, the companies we belong to, and the salaries we earn. When so much of our sense of self is tied up in a single identity, it’s easy to feel suffocated by the existential dread that creeps in when what began as a good, meaningful job no longer fuels us.

Paul argues that, as a society, we’ve mistaken securing good jobs for finding meaningful work. Rather than viewing our jobs as the portal to good work, it’s about redefining what work means to us — as acts of self-expression that don’t necessarily bear economic fruit rather than solely as acts of employment.

This isn’t to devalue our employment but rather to disentangle the “good enough” from the truly “good” work. It’s only when we reimagine what work means to us that we can create space to engage in the activities that allow us to flourish and flow.

• Good work: energizing activities that bring us to states of flow — not always easeful, but reliably nourishing

• “Good enough” work: supporting tasks that bring a level of enjoyment, often to help sustain us financially, but not central to our good work

• Supporting work: adjacent tasks that support our good work, but can become a distraction

• “Bad” work: draining work to minimize or avoid, but may be necessary to sustain ourselves financially

Once we have a sense of how each of the activities we engage in fit into these buckets, we can begin to prioritize our energy and time accordingly. In moments of existential dread, we’re likely filling our lives with supporting activities and “bad” work, too depleted to embark on our good work.

finding our good work in the marble

I often hear friends lament that they struggle with identifying what type of work they’d want to do if they had the freedom to do whatever they pleased. Then, they proceed to share a list of meaningful activities they wish they had more time to do.

In my experience, my good work has been surprisingly obvious to me, subtly manifesting as what I do when no one is watching. Once I expanded my definition of work, tapped into my intuition, and created space to experiment, it became abundantly clear that I’ve known what my good work is all along.

When I was in elementary school, I often spent recess writing short stories on the playground with my best friend. As I got older, despite my love for writing, it never occurred to me that I could continue writing even if it wasn’t a “viable” career path.

It took giving myself the permission to write again with no agenda other than self-expression to slip into deep states of flow. Often this feeling is so powerful that when I re-read my essays, I’m met with awe. I know I wrote those words, but I don’t remember how I assembled that sentence or how I arrived at that conclusion. I got lost in the writing and it naturally flowed through me.

The important qualifier is no agenda. When I first started reconnecting with writing, I felt a pressure to grow and monetize in ways that felt misaligned with my purpose for writing. After months of experimentation, I realized it was far more important for me to draw out what felt most alive in me on any given week than commit to a rigid publishing schedule to meet draining growth goals.

Ironically, by giving my relationship with writing space to naturally evolve, I now have far greater (and sustainable) ambitions for writing than I would have by trying to shoehorn it into a profit-making endeavor. Now, writing serves as my vehicle for discovery, expression, and expansion.

I write this coming off several weeks where I struggled to muster the words to piece together an essay. Rather than force myself towards publishing, I gave myself the grace to sit with the discomfort of not having the words, writing and writing until I found flow again.

Your good work exists within the marble slab of experimentation and action, waiting to be revealed. The journey is about patiently chiseling away at the inner and social expectations that keep you from pursuing the work that resonates at the soul level. Allow what doesn’t matter to fall away to make way for what does.

When you connect with your good work, protect it at all costs. Don’t put pressure on your acts of self-expression by trying to make it your sole source of income. When we buy into the notion that we must spend all of our time and energy doing our most meaningful work, we paralyze ourselves in the search for the perfect thing, ruminating rather than experimenting.

Seek out “good enough'“ and supporting work that afford you time and space to engage in your good work while maintaining the lifestyle you want to live.

The challenge lies not in discovering what our good work is, but in liberating ourselves from the notion that only financially lucrative activities constitute as meaningful work worth doing. Good work recharges our life force, energizes us to connect with our truest ambitions, and serves as our channel to express our humanity to the world.

giving voice to our intuition

All of us have an intuition around what our good work is. The question is whether we’re attuned enough with ourselves to trust that intuition. When we continuously suppress what we want to do in favor of what we should do, it becomes harder to connect with our most genuine desires even when we have the resources to do it.

What do you gravitate towards doing in moments when no one is watching? What came naturally to you as a child?

The best way to unstuck ourselves is to take small steps in cultivating self-trust in the face of “competing” priorities. Rather than thinking about the consequences, take action in building the momentum to figure it out.

Have an inkling to attend the writing event happening tomorrow even though you should work more? Go. Feel drawn to the local pottery class even though you should go to that networking event? Sign up. Contemplating going to the meditation sit even though you should catch up on emails? Meditate.

Evaluate how building self-trust feels in your body. Do you feel lightness or heaviness after acting on your intuition? Each time you honor the quiet whispers that emerge, you strengthen the bridge back to your inner wisdom. Over time, you create reference points of courage that further fuel you towards building a life around the experiences you feel called to.

As we age, the hope is that we gain a progressively deeper understanding of who we’ve been and who we aspire to become. This evolution demands we consciously examine the parts of ourselves that have succumb to societal shoulds. Unshackle yourself from the life you think you should live.

Who are we living and working for if not ourselves?

Here’s to finding your good work. The work you lose yourself in. The work that you do for the sake of it. The work that sets your soul on fire.

Thanks for reading! How do you define your “good work”?

Let me know in the comments or say hi on Twitter :)

Watch the replay of our fireside chat:

If you enjoy this piece, you may also enjoy my series on Work & Self-Expression:

Who we are without work

Knowledge work as an emotional act

How to sabbatical

Thanks to

Paul Millerd

for leading the way in reimagining our relationship with work, to

Ryan Trafton

for reviewing a draft of this essay and filming our discussion, and to everyone who joined us for the fireside chat.