What is meaningful work for you? AI is removing jobs at an alarming rate. So what are we all going to do in the future? Will be be living the life of our dreams, living off the state? Or will the marching draconian machine have eradicated us all by then?
I’ve been on a quest to find enjoyable work for several years. This led me to becoming a stuntman and working in the movies. But the veneer soon wore off and I found myself wanting something else. The once promised land of movie magic soon faded away and it became just another job.
I looked to the internet as an alternative income source and tried several strategies for earning online:
- Forex marketing
- eBay (buying and selling)
- Content creation (blogging, niche websites, videos)
- Affiliate marketing
I ultimately settled on affiliate marketing. I had the best results with affiliate marketing and even though Forex marketing looked promising, I didn’t want to be tied to the computer all day, looking at charts. Affiliate marketing lets you set your own schedule and work when (and where) you like. You can become geographically and financially free, both ideas highly motivated me. But mostly I wanted a reliable income because being a stuntman hardly ever gave me that.
Meaningful Work – Affiliate Marketing
There’s lots of ways to do affiliate marketing too. You can run paid ads and automate the process and this is great if you want a lot of free time and flexibility. There came a time where the affiliate marketing was working, giving me an income, without me having doing very much. This sounds like the perfect scenario, but it comes with its own inherent problems. I’m not complaining of course, and this is a great problem to have.
But it does leave you in a little bit of a fix, especially if you’ve worked very hard for this scenario to present itself (and identify yourself with the struggle). The work gave me meaning – to escape the trap of poverty. What now? The motivation I put into affiliate marketing came from the reality of my own financial difficulties. When those circumstances changed, I lost the meaning and the motivation. But also I was busy focusing on things I still couldn’t afford – keeping me bound in perpetual dissatisfaction!
This is typical in human nature and once your income increases, rather than choose to live in appreciation and happiness, we shift our attention to the things still out of reach financially. The drive to make more money is an endless one, perpetuated within our society. How much is enough? A home, food and a dependable income are pretty basic things. But once achieved, we want more!
In Thomas J Stanley’s book Stop Acting Rich, he talks about this in great detail. Once your income rises, you buy a nicer car and move to a nicer neighbourhood. Once in the nicer neighbourhood, you are subconsciously competing with your neighbours, raising your costs again.
Why Meaningful, Why Not Enjoyable?
All work can get dull when you do it enough, or if it no longer holds any meaning for you. But if work is meaningful to you, you won’t get bored because your motivation is intrinsic.
You want to work because the work has an alignment with your inner value system. Intrinsic motivation lasts much longer than external motivation. You can spend all day doing something you love.
Money only motivates you so far. Unless you’re super motivated by money, or you love your job, it will often only get you Just Over Broke (JOB)! So if you tie that intrinsic motivation to your work somehow, it won’t feel like “work” in the most mundane sense because you’ll love doing it!
Whatever you do, it can get dull. If you’re motivated externally, you’ll likely work only so much before you lose your motivation.
This picture is from Jeff Olson’s book The Slight Edge. It clearly shows the survival failure curve where many people reside. With intrinsic motivation, you’ll work much harder and for longer. This explains why it’s so difficult to succeed in a job you dislike/hate.
Summary
You’ve probably heard the saying “find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”.
I haven’t found that to be exactly true but I definitely know the difference between work I choose to do and that which I feel I have to do.
Building an online business has given me the luxury to see the difference because you can ultimately earn an income online without having to keep showing up. The automation from an online business means you can set up your business so it works largely without input.
This was my intention for building an online business in the first place – a passive income. Once it happened, it gave me a clearer insight into the work I was choosing to do because I loved it, and the work I was doing only for the money!
When you can drop that kind of work it’s a beautiful thing. It means you can get clear on what you want to do (meaningful work), and create a more free and flexible lifestyle around your values.
No other work I’ve found has given me the ability to work when and where I wanted, and around something which is meaningful.
I believe meaningful work is going to be a fundamental necessity with the rise of artificial intelligence. Not just because your income will be controlled by the overlords, but for your own mental health and independence.