17. Doing What You Like vs. Doing What You Love
How to navigate the pressure of finding fulfillment at work
“Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?
Yet I have often taken this advice to heart, with dangerous results. Sometimes this advice begins my Sisyphean pursuit of getting paid for that thing I love, which then proves problematic when the thing I love is scrolling Instagram or making art or engaging in activities that people don’t want to pay for. Other times this advice leads to a never-ending cycle of judgment about the jobs I thought I loved … but sometimes the jobs felt like work and therefore couldn’t be jobs I love, right?
We put a LOT of pressure on ourselves to find jobs we love. Certainly, there is virtue in this: spending more time doing things you love is a good thing. Shannon and I just shared our personal work journeys, which led us to build Bonfire, which we absolutely love. And while we can probably all agree that doing a job we hate isn't a positive or sustainable thing, what about a job we just like? What’s the difference between a job you like and a job you love? What’s to become of those of us who enjoy change in our work? Can you leave a job you love? Can you work a job you tolerate?
Navigating this work-life battle royale between doing what you like vs. doing what you love seems to underlie so many of our work journeys. We don’t want to “fail” along this journey by picking the wrong thing. But as it turns out, there really is no failure, there is no right answer, and a few subtle shifts in perspective can help turn the question from an either/or debate into a purpose-driven story.
The sweet spot for a fulfilling work life
The like vs. love debate is part of a larger equation of how we find fulfillment at work. One of my favorite ways to think about this is through the Japanese concept of ikigai, which outlines four elements of a joyful life:
What you love
What you’re good at
What the world needs
What you can be paid for
Related to this, I’ve coached many of my direct reports over the years to consider a simplified version of ikigai to find their ideal role within a company. The simplified version has three elements:
What you are good at
What you enjoy doing
What the company needs
(If these exercises sound valuable to you, we can help you with this career coaching. Drop us a reply to get in touch!)
The most subjective part to these equations, of course, is the question of what you enjoy doing. It seems straightforward enough, but it’s the question that trips people up most often. Unlike the other variables in these equations, “what you enjoy doing” can’t be answered with a skills rubric or a company SWOT analysis. It’s all on you, my friend, to know yourself well.
In my experience, I felt this as pressure.
I felt as if it were a referendum on my self-awareness.
I felt as if my decision was final. Pencils down. The point of no return. Once I locked in the thing I enjoyed doing, there was no turning back.
I thought everyone else had theirs figured out.
Turns out, I was wrong on all accounts!
Doing what you like vs. doing what you love seems to be a binary choice with a clear right or wrong answer, but it isn’t. There is no right answer. Not only do your favorite things change over time, but there is so much room for creativity within the design of your life that it’s impossible for there to be a universal correct way to be.
Take, for example, the fuzzy words we use to describe our work lives. In the ikigai diagram above, there are distinctions between vocation, profession, mission, and passion. You may hear people talk about jobs, careers, and callings. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of books like Eat Pray Love and Big Magic, uses the terms of hobby, job, career, and vocation. (Great recap here.)
A hobby is something you do for fun.
A job is something transactional. You trade your time, energy, and/or skills for money.
A career is a job you are passionate about.
A vocation is a calling.
Sometimes—many times—we have jobs. (These may be things we like doing—or don’t like doing—but are primarily just about us making money.)
Sometimes, we have these jobs in order to spend time on our hobbies or make inroads on a career or simply to get by.
At various points you may find that you are passionate about a job and want to turn it into a career. This may happen more than once, even. You may discover a calling, at any point in life, as you’re leaving college or nearing retirement, or maybe a calling always eludes you. This is okay, too.
As you can see, the matter of doing what you like vs. doing what you love is not a zero-sum game. You can have it both ways, and you probably will, at various points in life. If anything, the biggest problem with the phrasing is the word “do,” which implies work. If you were to think instead about how often you’re able to spend time on things you love and things you like, you may be better able to sort through the right approach to making sure you get even more of these types of activities, be they likes or loves, into your life.
The power of purpose; the reason for values
Conspicuously absent from the “find a job you love” maxim is the concept of purpose.
Purpose supersedes the question of like versus love.
It takes the pressure off of judging every career move because you are more interested in the big picture work and impact you get to do, whether it’s inside or outside of your work.
If you weigh your options from a purpose perspective, then it matters far less whether you like something or love something. It matters whether the thing aligns to your purpose. Rather than nitpicking the shades of like vs. love, you elevate the conversation to impact. And once you see things through the lens of purpose, then so many other things fade away: you’re not as concerned with like vs. love, you’re not as determined to “never have to work a day in your life.” You are oriented toward purpose.
Rather than “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life,” it is more like “Find a purpose that inspires you, and your work becomes one way to fulfill the purpose.”
The same can be true for using personal values as a guiding light when it comes to a healthy relationship with work. If you’re finding it hard to distinguish between what you like and what you love, instead turn to which values you hold most dear. There are a lot of exercises to create this list of values (we often coach people through this with a personal positioning exercise). And then it becomes a matter of aligning your work life and your life-life to these tenets.
And in all cases—like vs. love, purpose, values, allthethings—there are no wrong answers.
There are only ever your answers.
For more…
Follow us on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Stay tuned to our Substack space for new community features and ways to meet your fellow subscribers.
And let us know if you’d like to go deeper with us to talk about you and creativity. We do:
1:1 coaching and mentorship 🤩 most popular 🤩
Team workshops and consulting for marketing and leadership
Speaking and appearances on podcasts and at events