What Does Caring About the Little Details Says About You?
How can you tell if the work that you’re doing is truly your “thing”? If it’s something that you’re meant to be doing, as opposed to doing it for the paycheck or just because you’re going through the motions?
Sometimes, we can tell quite easily when it’s not “our” thing. We simply don’t enjoy the work, don’t look forward to it, or see it as a dead-end path. Or, there is the opposite, there is no doubt in your mind that this is what you’re meant to be doing.
But oftentimes, the answer can be hidden in the shades of gray. This can happen in a job that you do enjoy to a large degree and things aren’t all good or all bad, yet there is a nagging feeling that it’s not really what you want.
It can come down to one characteristic that helps reveal whether the work is the right fit. Caring about the little details.
When you’re doing work that you feel you are meant to be doing, your motivation comes from the internal satisfaction of the work itself. Doing the job well is rewarding enough. And that clearly shows when you care about the little details that create the distinction between the work that’s “good enough” and work that’s “great”. Sometimes those details are not noticed by anybody else, except yourself. Caring about the little things is ultimately what ends up separating the true passionate individuals and professionals from everybody else.
On the other hand, if your motivation comes from external factors — whether it’s money, stability, or fear — it becomes easier to let the details slip. That’s not to say that you won’t try to do your best, but simply that these details won’t seem as important. After all, as long as you get the job done, it’s good enough. You don’t necessarily see the point in spending more time on a task, if the end result is roughly the same.
There are, of course, other factors that come into play that can affect this. Burnout and stress can cause passionate and committed people to start slipping, even if they don’t intend to. Poor management can stifle creativity and attention to detail, if it constantly shifts priorities and focus of work. But, ultimately, the external factors only put emphasis on what is already there — they are not responsible nor will completely change whether you love your work or not.
Why is it even important to understand this? If you realize that your work isn’t your calling, what’s the purpose of even knowing that?
Underlying Reasons — at the end of the day, we should understand the reasons that make us do the things that we do. Not everyone is always in a position to completely change their situation, but if we aren’t consciously aware of what we’d want to change, we don’t even have a chance to try.
Going With the Flow — as it happens for many of us, we end up getting caught in a certain flow of college, work, career. Many of the paths that we end up taking happen by accident or unintentionally. While that is perfectly normal — as we’re usually not able to predict all of the opportunities that will be available to us in advance anyway — we should still pause every once in a while and re-evaluate if we’re still heading in the right direction.
To Sleep Well At Night — a writer once said that the reason he made the plunge into writing was so that he could sleep well at night. He would often wake up with ideas and thoughts that would keep nagging him and he’d be unable to go back to sleep until he started putting them down on paper. It’s not just about writing — this applies to any sort of work: to sleep great at night, you need to feel that you’re doing something that calls out to you.
“The soul of the world is nourished by people’s happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation. All things are one.” The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Originally published at www.quarterlifemusings.com on November 7, 2010.
