If it ain’t fun, you’re doing it wrong!
Why fun matters
My daughter loves to play golf. We all went out - daughter, son, husband and me - to play golf one weekend because my husband wanted to share one of his passions with us.
Katie, 7 years old right now, has so much fun playing golf. She’s so patient with herself and with her daddy’s instructions, it’s amazing. My son, Jackson, on the other hand, can’t instantly master golf so he hates it and ends up throwing clubs around in exasperation. He’s 9 years old and he already wants to be perfect the first time he does something.
He’s doing it wrong. His approach to golf isn’t about having fun, it’s about being awesome at it. It’s a great goal to have, but that kind of goal isn’t something you reach in one day. And if reaching that goal is no fun for him, then he should understand it’s not something he has to do.
Me? I went out knowing I would suck at it, but determined to have a good time. I told myself ahead of time that this was something my husband knew way more about than I did, so taking instruction from him wasn’t difficult for me. (I may have issues with being “told” what to do sometimes. Or so I hear.)
I was determined to have fun. And why is that? Where does that attitude come from?
One of my directors and professors at Texas A&M University - he goes by the name of Coach - said this all the time: “If it ain’t fun, you’re doing it wrong!” We even made t-shirts with the slogan.
I didn’t realize then what an important message he was giving his students. And I had no idea how much it would mean to me to have that echoing through my thoughts as I made choices in my personal life and my career.
I remember being stuck in a dead-end job in Los Angeles in my mid-20s, thinking about how miserable I was. It was such a terrible job that my manager privately sent me a job listing outside of work and told me I needed to get out sooner rather than later. And the words “If it ain’t fun, you’re doing it wrong!” started playing over and over in my mind.
I took a leap and quit, and it paid off. I started working at my first full-time web design job (no “other duties as assigned”), and it was fantastic. From that point on, I started to absorb more knowledge about visual design, front-end development and user experience.
Then came the point several years later, when I was designing as well as doing ASP.NET. I had an epiphany about my career path. I realized I loathed object-oriented coding, but I had so much fun designing and doing the front-end markup.
I realized I was doing it wrong. I decided from that point on to focus on the visual and interaction design and drop object-oriented code. And that made me so happy. And it’s a decision I’ve never once regretted.
When I mentor a newer designer, one of the first things I ask them is what do they enjoy about their job. I ask them what do they like the least and why. I do some digging to find out where their fun is so that I can mentor them in a direction that will help them be successful.
Consider the amount of time the average person spends working. Fun is important in careers because without it, we’re just working for a paycheck, not for our passion.
It’s never too late to shift gears and do something that is fun for you and truly makes you happy. All it takes is figuring out what that something is.
