24/7's Dilemma
While having a conversation with a group of friends at a Social Santa event, I pulled my phone out to add a couple of recommended restaurants to one of my Foursquare lists. A quick glance at the Mail app revealed a count of 14 unread emails, which is fairly odd for 9:30 pm. After following the thread, it turned out to be a colleague asking another colleague to do something and was apologetic for the late request. The requested colleague simply responded by saying “I’m always on!”. That comment put the biggest smile on my face right in the middle of a group conversation.
You see I’ve been singing the job-versus-career praises for a while now. By that I mean, when you look at your occupation as a job, it has a start time and end time. Contrarily, when you view it as a career, there is no such thing – you’re on 24/7.
Every time I tell that to a group of people, someone always says “you can’t possibly expect anyone to work 24 hours, 7 days a week”, “I need me time”, and “if I answer emails during after-hours, it’ll become an expectation”. My answer to that is “not exactly”, “OK”, and “just answer when you can – after-hours are after-hours, after all”, respectively. I call that 24/7’s dilemma, but it's something that should be a non-issue and here's why.
When your career becomes a part of your life, you cease counting hours and worrying about unimportant things — you just do. Think about this: do athletes complain about all the training that comes with being an athlete? Do performers make a big deal of all the rehearsing before gigs? Do CEOs ever sound like they rather be elsewhere during an earnings call?
Notice that I picked very specific industries — sports, arts, and business — to show that although they are distinct in nature, you can make it and succeed at the highest levels by devoting yourself completely. The aforementioned careers all belong to people who commit 100% of their lives to what they do.
Now, let me clear up a misconception. Being committed to something 100% doesn't mean you're always doing that one thing. It means that your lifestyle is defined by that commitment. Essentially, job responsibilities never feel like job responsibilities. Personally, I really enjoy working with someone that works as hard, if not harder, than myself. No complaining nor clock watching, just getting stuff done, period.
Here are some tips to follow, so you can get to this point.
Marry Your Career
If you love your career, why not marry it? No altar is necessary; you just need to make the decision to commit yourself. Be sure you are true to yourself and have a "this-is-what-I-do" mentality!
A pet peeve of mine is hearing people complaining about work and wishing they were home on a Monday. Really?! I can only understand that on Thursday or if you work 2 jobs. Marry your career and you'll be a Monday person.
If Your Occupation is a Job, Get a Career.
Some people differentiate a career from a job by the benefits and the individual growth factor. However, I'm a deep believer that it's more about perspective. What do you consider your current occupation — a job or career?
I get that some people are caught between jobs or are doing something they don't like to make ends meet. That's totally cool, just make sure you're making moves to get into doing something you love!
Have a Career? Make It Your Lifestyle.
Some of the things you do in your spare time revolve around your career, such as, events, trips, parties, etc. Those events are fun not only because they’re social and don’t occur within the confines of your office, but because you are no longer categorizing it as a job event. Now, let’s say you could make every function of your career transcend the notion of viewing it as a job responsibility. Instead, view it in the “this-is-what-I-do” lenses. That would make for the kind of work day where time flies and spontaneous email checks come naturally.
Putting It All Together
As I'm sure you'll agree, 24/7's dilemma is really a reason to explain not thinking about your job during after hours. It's insane to expect anyone to work all the time. However, I propose making changes to your lifestyle and mentality that will allow you to do your job, while loving it 100% of the time. It's the beginning of a new year and the perfect time to get started. Do it!