Love What You Do

We’ve all heard it: “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, but in practice, it’s left many people disillusioned. They look at their careers and think, “Why am I not as happy as I should be?” I’ve coached countless engineers through burnout and frustration, and I can tell you: work isn’t always a joyride. There are days when the grind gets to all of us.

Work/life balance helps, certainly for jobs that follow you home or creep into your thoughts at odd hours. But the key to happiness, and more specifically job satisfaction, lies in a subtle twist to that old advice: love what you do.

Somewhere along the way, it morphed into “do what you love.” But reversing it makes the wisdom clearer.

Loving what you do isn’t about finding a perfect job that aligns with your every passion. It’s about reframing the work you already do to find satisfaction in the details, in the mastery of the task, in its connection to the bigger picture.

Take me, for example. I love connecting with people and helping them grow. Guiding teams of software engineers is my passion. But I don’t love everything about the job. Detailed record keeping, capitalized software reports, and other administrative tasks? Not my idea of fun.

When faced with one of those tasks, I could dwell on how boring or time-consuming it is. I could procrastinate and leave it as a punishment for future me. Or, I could focus on its purpose. By knocking it out, I enable myself to do what I truly love—supporting and developing my team. I remind myself that this piece of work, while not thrilling, is a meaningful step toward the things I care about most.

And there’s always pride to be found in a job well done or finishing a task ahead of schedule.

This reframing doesn’t mean you ignore legitimate issues with your work environment or role. If you’re in a toxic situation or truly misaligned with your career, changes may be necessary. But more often than not, our frustration stems from losing sight of the parts of the job we do love.

Take a moment to reflect: what drew you to your role in the first place? What tasks energize you? What skills do you take pride in? Lean into those. And when you’re faced with something less exciting, think about how it supports the bigger picture.

The happiest professionals aren’t the ones who lucked into perfect jobs. They’re the ones who’ve mastered the art of finding joy and purpose in their work. They prove that you, too, can find satisfaction in what you do—by starting with what you love.