To enjoy work, derive pleasure out of pressure

It is important to enjoy the effort we put in to achieve our goals

When Thomas Alva Edison was asked how he kept himself motivated to do such hard work, and for so long, his reply was something no one had said before. Edison said, “It is not hard work, but something I really enjoy.”

The fantastic reply that Edison gave, provides us with a very interesting perspective: What one thought as hard work was viewed differently by the other.

Why this difference? So what actually is hard work? When is hard work not viewed as ‘hard’ work by the one performing it? The answers lie within us.

Edison’s reply demonstrated just that. What basically made him say that it was not hard work was the fact that he enjoyed that work. Yes it did take a lot of effort, sweat and time. But he enjoyed what he did: ‘hard work’.

So when one enjoys the effort he puts into something, even that hard work seems easy and pleasurable.

Goals drive us forward. Some appear tougher that the rest, involving an element of skill to achieve them. But if we set a goal of achieving something new, then skills do not make much of a difference.

For instance, writing an exam appears difficult for many and preparing for the same is also very stressful. The goal here is to achieve good results and preparation is geared towards achieving that. However when one comes to enjoy the process of preparation, the effort does not appear as hard work or pressure. Instead, it will be viewed as pleasure; the pleasure of knowing more, learning something new and so on.

The Indian cricket team under MS Dhoni has a new mantra compared to previous teams.

MS Dhoni says, “Go there and enjoy your game,” to his players. This does wonders to each and every one of them. Similarly, when a person enjoys what he is doing, the performance will be the best he can deliver. All the players have skills, or else they would not have found themselves there in the first place. The results of our cricket team are there for all to see. When pressure is off, best results appear and the whole experience is enjoyable.

Artists spend long hours to complete one work and they find the entire exercise enjoyable. But for non-artists, it appears to become too much work. Similarly, we can come across many examples in our lives.

When people set goals, some of them spend a lot of time working on something continuously but still do not appear tired or depleted. Instead, they appear peppy and energised. Similarly, some people sleep for a very short duration since they work through the night on something they were really interested in, but they also continue to be active.

We can notice that when we do something we are really interested in we don’t feel depleted. Rather we feel energised. Any effort we put in appears pleasurable and not as hard work at all.

We can relate this to the law of physics which states that for work to be done, there should be ‘resistance’, which is what we don’t want to put in.

When we perform things requiring extra effort, which we may not want to actually do, we tend to feel we are doing hard work and we feel its pressure. We feel we are being stretched and depleted, when such effort is sustained for longer periods.

On the contrary, when we perform things that ‘we like to do’ we feel the opposite. We feel energised and positive and we feel we can go on and on. We enjoy the failures and success. Like Edison said, when so many experiments of his failed, “I know one more way of how not to do things.” Every experience becomes positive. Those experiences motivate us to go on and we do not feel it is pressure at all.

The moral of the story is to find that we enjoy and do them to the best of our abilities. It need not be something in our comfort zone. In fact, it should not be.

While learning a new skill or doing something, we have not known or done before, it will make us stretch and do more than normal work. It will put us under pressure to know that or achieve that goal.

Since this is the first time we are doing it, there is no benefit of the Learning Effect i.e. a management concept which claims a reduction in effort for an action repeated over and over again. For example, in a production environment, if a product is made for the first time and takes hours of effort, then when the same product is made by the same team of people with the same tasks will take much less and less as they make more and more of the same.

Once the desire to achieve the goal is strong, the person will make the required effort.

However, is the person getting energised by putting that effort? That depends on the person, if he is interested to achieve this goal he has set. Even if the person does not like what he is doing, the goal can be achieved. But that will be achieved under pressure.

That will not be an enjoyable journey. And when the person likes that goal and is interested in it, he will experience pleasure. For a person observing this effort from the outset, it may appear as pressure while the person performing it is experiencing pleasure.

This depleted feeling or feeling elated tells us something. The feeling of being under pressure or pleasure gives us a very strong indication of what we are doing against what we should be doing.

It basically tells us about the alignment of our choice with our talents and interests.

When a typical worker in an office behaves uncooperatively, he might be totally disinterested in doing what he is assigned. So each and every task appears humongous and stressful. That attitude permeates in his dealings with clients and colleagues. His actions speak for the feelings, though he may disagree for the fear of superiors or job security.

A feeling of pressure indicates that we are doing something not fully aligned with our natural talents and interests. So there is a resistance and hence, the effort we are putting in is felt as pressure.

Similarly, it also indicates the alignment of our natural talents and the goal we are pursuing.

All the efforts we put in take us closer and closer to the goal. Hence each effort and every little progress makes us energised and happy. So any effort seems pleasurable.

A mother takes a lot of effort to care for a little toddler. Sure it is physical and mental strain from a physiological and emotional perspective. But you ask the mother and you will get a completely different reply. She would say I enjoy taking care of my child, so I do not feel any pressure but it’s a pleasure.

So when we do something, especially those that take that extra bit of effort, we better choose that goal as close to something we really want. When we choose something we really want we will feel each and every effort put in as a pleasurable activity. The same activities will appear as a pressure situation to some one who is not as interested in it.

It is important to enjoy the effort we put in achieving our goals. It is more important to choose those goals that we feel we really want to achieve; those goals that will energise us. That will make every effort we put in enjoyable. Those goals are the ones that match closely to our natural abilities and strengths.

(The writer is Director-Practice (Solutions), HCL Technologies)