What makes me happy

People who work tend to drift into work they tolerate. They miss the chance to deliberately expand the parts of work that they love.

Do an audit at least once a year of what parts of your work you find rewarding. That way, you can continue to shift your work in the directions that will enable you to grow successfully. (It probably also makes sense to audit what you hate most, but for today, I’m going to concentrate on the positive.)

This is especially important for freelancers, because it will influence what kinds of services you offer and what kinds of clients you seek.

Here’s what I love

I am a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter. I also conduct surveys and write about them.

In 11 years as a freelancer, these are the things that I’ve learned will make me the happiest:

• Writing as much as possible every day.
• Helping author clients to accomplish their dreams.
• Solving the puzzle of researching, writing, and publishing my own books.
• Solving the puzzle of researching, writing, and publishing books I ghostwrite for clients.
• Being exposed every day to clients’ new and sometimes startling ideas.
• Helping clients learn to be become better writers through thoughtful developmental editing.
• Indexing. (Hey, I’m just weird, I like making indexes.)
• Conceiving, conducting, and writing reports about surveys.
• Lobbing ideas out into the world and seeing the ripples they make.
• Working collaboratively with other smart people on industry initiatives.

Looking at that list, I feel grateful that it includes such a variety of different activities. Every day can be different, and yet all of them can be rewarding.

The other thing I like about my list is that there are so many opportunities for growth. I keep getting exposed to new people, new ideas, new techniques, and new knowledge. It literally never gets old. Nonfiction writing can be about anything, and that’s why my work is endlessly fascinating.

I’m lucky that I can get paid well for so many of these activities. Some don’t immediately pay (like this blog and making ripples) and some pay poorly (on a per-hour basis, indexing is about 25% as lucrative as everything else I do). It doesn’t matter. Taken together, these activities are a good way to make a living.

There is mercifully little politics in what I do and I don’t spend much time on billing and hounding people to get paid. I got lucky there. Other freelancers don’t have a similar experience, based on what they tell me.

I am not concerned with growing my business beyond my ability to do all the work myself. If I were 30 and not 67, I might try to build myself into an agency, but at my age, that concept holds little appeal.

What about you?

What do you love about your work?

How are you pursuing growth to make those parts of your work more fulfilling?

What non-revenue-generating activities would you undertake to expand the parts of your work that you love?

Take a moment to pause the daily grind and think about this. If you don’t do this, don’t be surprised if a year from now your work feels exactly the same.