Grow with Soul: Episode 104 - The 3 Types Of Work & What They Can Tell You About Misalignment
Today I am sharing some thoughts around the work, the work, and the work. So these are the three different things that we think and we talk about when we talk about work. When there is a disjoint, a misalignment, or just a general demotivation, we tend to go looking for the big solution in the entirety of our work, instead of pinpointing which type of work is actually causing the problem. In this episode I'm going to describe the three types of work, how to identify which one is the problem, and also provide some ideas and solutions to each one. If you have a feeling that something's not quite right but you're not sure why, then this one is for you.Here's what I talk about in this episode:
Recognising the three types of work
Identifying which type of work is the problem and going further than just demotivation and dissatisfaction
Ways to shift misalignments in the three types of work
How to decide whether to shift the content or the format
Read the full episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to episode 104 of Grow With Soul. Today I’m sharing my thoughts around the work, the work and the work – the three different things we talk about when we talk about work. When there is a disjoint, misalignment or just a general de-motivation, we tend to go looking for the big solution in the entirety of our work instead of pinpointing which type of work is actually causing the problem.
In this episode I’m going to describe the three types of work, how to identify which one is the problem, and provide some ideas for solutions to each one. So if you just have a general feeling that “something’s not exactly right” but you’re not sure why, then this one is for you.
When we refer to “work”, there are actually three distinct things we could be talking about – these might be scrambled together in your mind, or perhaps one or two of the versions never occurred to you. Either way, when we separate out “work” into its three variations, we can start to move forwards into clarifying some of our problems, and knowing where we need more alignment.
SO WHAT ARE THE THREE VARIATIONS?
The work – what you actually do on a daily basis
The work – what you produce
The work – the purpose or impact you seek to have
For ease in this episode I will call them The work 1, The work 2 and The work 3.
Examples of the first type of work is often what we most often think of in terms of “going to work” or “doing work” – this is the emails, the Instagram posts, the client calls, the product creation, the sales pages.
The second type of the work is often what you finish after the first type of work – it is the batch of candles, the published article, the course you’re running. The difference between work 1 and work 2 is essentially that work 1 is a verb and work 2 is a noun – you do work 1 and you hold or present work 2.
But then there’s work 3, and we may not think about it all that much. Work 3 is zoomed out and less easy to pin down. It’s what your work is about, it is the motivator and the difference you want to make – this is where you might say “my work is about empowering women to start their own businesses” or “my work is to nurture calm within busy lives”.
While, of course, the three types of work slot together like cogs in a machine, they are also very much not the same thing. You will have different needs and wants from each one, and each one will also need different types of oil (inspiration or motivation) to keep it working. If you treat them all the same, then the machine isn’t going to run efficiently. And when one piece breaks, it’s not that the entire machine needs replacing, or even that you can keep it going and just ignore that there’s something clunking around ominously inside. When you see the three types of work as three distinct cogs, you can get in there, troubleshoot which cog it is, and fix it.
SO, HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY WHICH TYPE OF WORK IS THE PROBLEM?
The trouble is, demotivation with one type of work can feel the same as demotivation in the other two – and dissatisfaction with one can cause dissatisfaction in another. It can be difficult to untangle the problem from the other two. This is why people get into scenarios where they are convinced they don’t want to be a designer anymore, and they 100% want to have an online shop, and then they start to really miss design and a year later have started a new job as a designer where they feel much more at home. If we confuse the types of work, it can take us on a detour that is painful.
It is easiest to start with work 1 – do you actually want to be doing every day what you’re doing every day? Sometimes, the ratios might be a little off, like you would rather be spending more time creating than you did in your inbox this week, but on the whole, does your to do list reflect what you want to do on a daily basis? Question everything – it’s easy to say “well, my to do list is mostly writing and I want to write, so yes”, but just ask yourself “is writing what I do still want to do?” Let everything be up for grabs for a little bit and do a little scan through your body and into your gut feeling to see whether it all still feels good. If it’s not, if you look at your to do list and think “none of this is how I want to be spending my day” or “you know what, I don’t think I actually enjoy writing as much as I thought I would” then you know your problem is with work 1. If this is still how you want to spend your day, then we can move on to work 2.
Do you actually want people to buy your stuff? Of course you do in terms of its better to have money than not, and the little validation of the email notification is undoubtedly nice. But those practical things aside, do you actually want people to buy the work you’ve produced? This is always a sign to me that work 2 is out of alignment – when I don’t want to talk about my products or actually have anyone buy them. Not because I don’t think they’re good, but because they don’t feel like me. It’s a feeling of “oh no, don’t look at that, that’s not really who I am anymore and I’m not sure I want you to think of me in that way” – I don’t want to be known for this body of work. So, if you look at your products, your courses, your programs, how do you feel? Do you actually want people to buy them? Is there some discomfort that feels a little bit like shame, a little bit like a dress that’s too tight? This may be your sign that work 2 is the problem.
And then we come to work 3. Dissatisfaction with work 3 can cause and explain dissatisfaction with the other two types. You need to have a little bit of nuance here – for example, with work 1 it might be that you definitely still want to write, you just don’t want to be writing about this; for work 2, the course is sort of fine but you just want to angle it differently. If you’ve caveated your responses to works 1 and 2, it might be an issue with work 3. A misalignment with work 3 always feels to me like a general not fitting – when you try something on that you really want to like and it looks ok but it’s also kinda tight in some places and baggy in others and you can’t work out quite why you don’t like it or where the problem is. You could just wear it and always be a bit self-conscious and not comfortable in yourself, or you can let it go. I once had a voice pop into my head that said, kindly, “not this” – there wasn’t a problem with what I was doing, it just wasn’t right. It’s frustratingly unspecific, but sometimes the answer to knowing whether work 3 needs to change is if you just feel “not this”.
So now let’s look at some things you can do once you’ve identified whether you need to shift works 1, 2 or 3.
WORK 1
What are the things you can just stop doing and it won’t make much difference? Trust me, these things exist, you just need to step back from them a little bit. They’re the things that you’ve lost track of why you’re doing them, the things that don’t make any meaningful difference, the things that don’t move you closer to your goals (or even move you further from them). Start cutting a few things out. Look at outsourcing (episode 99 has more thoughts on this).
Make a list of what you do want to be doing day to day – what you want more of, what you want to add in. Commit to doing ten minutes extra of this – you have ten minutes. Don’t try to overhaul it all in a week, give yourself a transition period where you can unravel each thing piece by piece. This transition period might be a month, it might be closer to a year. It will take time, but you can also, every day, do a little bit more of what you want and a little bit less of what you don’t.
WORK 2
With work 2 you need to work out if it’s the content or the format. If it’s a format issue, then you might be thinking that your courses aren’t the best way for you to help people and that 121 or workshops would be better. Or that you have been making scarves for people to wear, but now that home has become more important, you want to do blankets instead. The format is usually an easier switch that doesn’t need too much explaining.
If it’s the content that’s the issue, then you may have a bigger job on your hands (and this may be a symptom or a link to a problem with work 3). For example, this might be that you don’t want to help people learn how to start a podcast, but you want to help them grow their confidence – this might be because you realise this is a better expression of the impact and purpose you want to have. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need a total rebrand (unless you’ve built your business on being The Podcast Person in which case you might need some branding work), but it will mean that you will need to take some time and care around transitioning your content and offerings and making sure you bring your audience along on the journey.
WORK 3
If you’ve identified work 3 as the issue, then buckle yourself in my friend! This is going to be a journey which is frustrating and uncertain and overwhelming, but boy will it lead you somewhere magical. This isn’t something to be fearful of or to worry about, it is you stepping into a more truthful version of your work, a better fitting skin.
The thing is, it takes a long time and cannot be forced. Forcing yourself to decide and define your work 3 is what will mean you are doing the whole process again in 6 months time when the novelty’s worn off. It might even be why you are here now with a misaligned work 3, if in the past you just wanted to pin it down more than you wanted to wait for it to be right (and no judgement because the waiting is uncomfortable and annoying).
This is what I have done, time and again. Know something isn’t right, but not had the patience to sit and let what is right be revealed, and so I’ve done a quick change of emphasis, or a change or works 1 and 2, and it’s been sort of fine until it’s not fine again. Again and again I come back to that voice of “not this” – which is frustrating when the voice doesn’t follow up with the detailed instructions of what is “yes, this over here”. I finally have gotten to a place where I am willing to sit and let it reveal itself – as I wrote on Instagram this week it is coming. It is coming, but it is coming on the waves. Back and forth, in and out. Sometimes you can almost reach it, but then it recedes out of view. Back and forth, in and out. Stay open, stay patient. It is coming. It is coming to you on the tide, and you need to stay on the shore.
My job is to stay on the shore with my eyes and ears open ready to grasp the hints and clues, to jot down notes and reflect on them. To journal and write out some streams of consciousness and see what comes up, to think about why what inspires me is inspiring. I need to let it ebb closer and closer and not swim out to it, not force it to be something or force it to exist. It will come when it, and I, am ready. In the meantime, maybe you don’t do any big launches but focus in on your client work, maybe you clear out your seconds instead of launching a new collection, perhaps even take on some freelance work. Work 3 defines Works 2 and 1, so no sudden movements or sticking plasters there. This is your work – it needs to fit.
