find your fun
What would it be like if having fun was your differentiator?
Welcome to Good Work - I’m your resident unlicensed work therapist.
Each week you’ll get an idea to consider and an exercise to put it into practice, plus my POV on a reader question about work. The goal will always be to push you toward more good work, because I think you’re capable of it.
Today’s idea
Having fun, strategically, can be a powerful differentiator.
This was the second note I wrote after joining substack, and tbh I was caught off guard by its resonance and reception.
Whenever I think of the folks I admire most - those I’d love to work with - one of their most visible traits is always that they clearly enjoy most of what they do. They enjoy it so much that they’re highly engaged, and able to spend the extra time and energy to make what they do interesting for themselves and others. They’re constantly challenging themselves and experimenting and sharing their delight in their work with the world around them.
Now, it would be #verybadadvice if I said you should only work on things you love - as we all know, that’s a pipe dream. Where I’m actually going with this is that you should invest time and energy into finding ways to have fun in the work you already do.
Can you integrate more of what you love into what you do? Can you test new versions of your work that pique your curiosity vs just going through the motions each day? Can you use fun examples instead of serious ones to illustrate your points? Small moments of delight throughout your days can add up to big change - both in how you feel, and in how those around you perceive you to feel.
Enthusiasm and curiosity are contagious, and they make people want to help you and work with you. Where can you spark those moments for yourself using the frameworks and resources that you already have? And then, how can you share that enthusiasm and curiosity with those around you?
Our goal is not 100% fun (again, a pipe dream) - it’s to move your work minutes from 2% fun to 15% fun.
That extra 13% fun will meaningfully differentiate you from those who have come before you, and from those who are competing with you for the same opportunities, awareness, exposure, clients, business, etc.
In practice
Sometimes, we’re so deep in it that it’s hard to even imagine what fun at work could look like. Here are three prompts to explore that for yourself:
How did you willingly spend your free time as a kid and teen?
How can you integrate the essence of those activities into how you approach your work now?
ex. I spent my childhood free time collecting things, sharing my passions with adults, trying to understand others, and reading. Most of my work fun today comes from curating information, sharing my interests with adults, trying to understand and help people, and reading/reflecting on other people’s work.Name 2-3 projects or moments at work (ever) that you enjoyed, either because they were fun to do or because you found what you learned really interesting.
What themes and through lines can you observe about those projects so you can prioritize doing more of them?
ex. Maybe you really enjoyed a project you did with a specific person - what made that project fun? How can you replicate that? Was it because the person was fun, or you two came up with a version of the project that was more interesting than the generic version?Choose 1-2 things you do at work that you could have more fun with or reinvent in some way.
What outputs can you make more engaging for stakeholders? How can you add some color or stories or creative ideas to brainstorms or deliverables? How can you help others enjoy their days and work more?Think:
Presentations
Research projects
Docs and writing
Communication with peers
Content & sharing
Community building with coworkers or customers
Mentoring or managing
ex. Use fun and relevant examples. Inject a joke or two. Use your speaking voice vs your academic or work-coded voice. Share your perspectives in addition to the facts. Use a color!
Office hours
Q: How can I make a career pivot or change my situation without starting over?
A: We need more language around career pivots. A pivot implies a very significant redirection, and career adjustments don’t always need to be so dramatic to be effective or impactful.
I’d like to propose a new framework:
Career wiggle
A career wiggle is a small, low-risk adjustment inside your existing lane - career wiggles are great for maintaining interest and momentum without having to reinvent your professional identity or narrative.
Think: slight shifts in role scope or focus, keeping the same role/title but in a new industry, or adding a side project to explore new territory.
Career shift
A career shift is a directional change without a full reset. You’re carrying skills and leverage from your past work, but applying it in a new context. This might look like joining an adjacent team at your company (ex. marketing → product marketing), shifting from full time to fractional or freelance, or investing in part time education to learn a new, complimentary set of skills.
This is where storytelling becomes especially important - how can you find and articulate the through line between what you were doing before and what you’re doing now? What was the why for the shift?
Career overhaul
A career overhaul is a clean break. You go back to school, you claim a new path, you start from the beginning in a new world. Your prior experience may help internally, but externally you’re rebuilding credibility, identity, and momentum.
Overhauls tend to be emotionally taxing, extremely humbling, and usually well worth it, but this is definitely the ‘feels like starting over’ category.
Now that we have more language to work with, what can you do in terms of a wiggle or a shift before you commit to an overhaul?
Until our appointment next week,
