What feels like fun to me, but work to others? The mark of whether
you are made for a task is not whether you love it but whether you can
handle the pain of the task easier than most people. When are you
enjoying yourself while other people are complaining? The work that
hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.
What makes me lose track of time? Flow is the mental state you
enter when you are so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the
world fades away. This blend of happiness and peak performance is
what athletes and performers experience when they are “in the zone.”
It is nearly impossible to experience a flow state and not find the task
satisfying at least to some degree.
Where do I get greater returns than the average person? We are
continually comparing ourselves to those around us, and a behavior is
more likely to be satisfying when the comparison is in our favor.
When I started writing at jamesclear.com, my email list grew very
quickly. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing well, but I knew that
results seemed to be coming faster for me than for some of my
colleagues, which motivated me to keep writing.
What comes naturally to me? For just a moment, ignore what you
have been taught. Ignore what society has told you. Ignore what others
expect of you. Look inside yourself and ask, “What feels natural to
me? When have I felt alive? When have I felt like the real me?” No
internal judgments or people-pleasing. No second-guessing or self-
criticism. Just feelings of engagement and enjoyment. Whenever you
feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction.
To be honest, some of this process is just luck. Michael Phelps and
Hicham El Guerrouj were lucky to be born with a rare set of abilities that
are highly valued by society and to be placed in the ideal environment for
those abilities. We all have limited time on this planet, and the truly great
among us are the ones who not only work hard but also have the good
fortune to be exposed to opportunities that favor us.
But what if you don’t want to leave it up to luck?
If you can’t find a game where the odds are stacked in your favor, create
one. Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, says, “Everyone has at
least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In
my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And
I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it
big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can
draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I
do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a
topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.”
When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different. By
combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it
easier to stand out. You can shortcut the need for a genetic advantage (or for
years of practice) by rewriting the rules. A good player works hard to win
the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that
favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.
In college, I designed my own major, biomechanics, which was a
combination of physics, chemistry, biology, and anatomy. I wasn’t smart
enough to stand out among the top physics or biology majors, so I created
my own game. And because it suited me—I was only taking the courses I
was interested in—studying felt like less of a chore. It was also easier to
avoid the trap of comparing myself to everyone else. After all, nobody else
was taking the same combination of classes, so who could say if they were
better or worse?
Specialization is a powerful way to overcome the “accident” of bad
genetics. The more you master a specific skill, the harder it becomes for
others to compete with you. Many bodybuilders are stronger than the
average arm wrestler, but even a massive bodybuilder may lose at arm
wrestling because the arm wrestling champ has very specific strength. Even
if you’re not the most naturally gifted, you can often win by being the best
in a very narrow category.
Boiling water will soften a potato but harden an egg. You can’t control
whether you’re a potato or an egg, but you can decide to play a game where
it’s better to be hard or soft. If you can find a more favorable environment,
you can transform the situation from one where the odds are against you to
one where they are in your favor.
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