I’ve spent too much of the early part of my life dreaming about and planning to get the rewards that come from hard work. The focus for me was always on the end product. That was the goal, and the only thing that mattered. I’d spend hours and days or longer focused on getting to the finish line. The finish line was not “an” objective, it was “the only” objective. I referred to myself as a “carrot and stick” kind of guy. I needed to have a carrot to chase as my main motivation.

Here’s the thing. It really didn’t motivate me like I’d thought it would or should. The goal or final product was so far off, the work long and arduous and the time! Don’t even start talking to me about the time it was going to take. More than any other thing it was the time that eventually caused me to quit or fall well short of whatever goal I’d had in mind. It got to feel “not worth it”, or not worth it enough to carry on. I’d move from one “goal” to another “goal”. My life was a series of moving from goal to goal with limited actual end results to show for it. I’d start to take pride in half-goals. Partly finished projects, or half-way achieved objectives. I’d look at where I was and sadly, I’d settle. That’s really what it was; settling.

Over time, my creativity fizzled as my goals became less and less ambitious. It was much easier to feel good about a completed task if it could be done quickly. What I gained in achievement by saving time, I lost in creative ability. I’d stopped reaching as high because I’d stopped trying so hard. The big dream because the smaller accepted reality.

There is a Biblical story that illustrates this and also shows the potentially horrifying result of quitting on your own self, your own dreams, your own purpose in life. “Terah took Abram his son…and they went forth together to go from Ur of the Chaldees (modern day Iraq) into the land of Canaan (Israel); but when they got to Haran (in Syria), they settled there…and Terah died in Haran.”

The Bible doesn’t tell us why Terah sought to go to Canaan, whether God led him to do so, or he chose to on his own, but Haran would have been about the half way point. He would have followed the Euphrates River north and east into Syria, left the river and travelled back south and west into Canaan. But he stopped.

Haran was an important city, a major trade thoroughfare and would have been an ideal place for a family to make a home. Doubtless, everyone would have been tired from the long journey and there would have been livestock and camels that would have required tending along the way. Food and supply would have been plentiful and what they lacked they could have easily traded for.

In leaving Haran and heading toward Damascus and then into Canaan, Terah would have been leaving the Euphrates and not reaching another significant body of water until he got to the Sea of Galilee, well past Damascus and on the northern most part of Canaan. No doubt, Haran had a lot of good things going for it for an old man with that much family and livestock. I imagine the journey to Haran along the river with all of that was challenging, and I can just see Terah thinking about another journey of the same length with no river. How bright, shining and perfect Haran must have appeared in comparison!

So he settled there, and all the Bible has to say about him after that is that he died. A picture of a life not fully lived because of a dream that was given up on; all because he settled. This story takes place at the end of chapter 11, and in Genesis chapter 12 we have it recorded that God told Abram to leave that place and finish the journey his father had started, which we know that he did. But for valuing the wrong reward, today the Jews could be the Children of Terah, rather than the Children of Abraham.

The work is the reward, not the thing we want the work to produce. The work defines us and more importantly, allows us to define ourselves as we go through the process of doing it. On that path we learn new skills, sharpen and deepen ones we already have, help those who work along side of us by teaching what we know and learning from those who have spent the time to acquire skills we admire and wish to imitate. In my own experience, here are a few of the lessons I have learned as I’ve shifted my focus from the end product as being the reward to letting the work be the reward.

When the end product is the only reward you see, whatever you are doing today just sucks. This is simply because it’s not tomorrow. You’re “not there” yet. It breeds internal dissatisfaction which has the negative consequence of getting our eyes off of the goal and onto whatever we find distasteful in the middle of our process. It naturally leads to a negative attitude which has a spiraling effect of lowering productivity and desire. We go from being joyously consumed by our magnificent objective to dismayed and discouraged at the drudgery of the process. And we usually quit half-way through.

By focusing on the current work, I’ve found joy in challenging myself. When I write pieces such as this one, I’ll both edit as I write, and then do a top to bottom edit. Every editing pass I challenge myself to be more succinct, to economize my words, to be more focused on my point. Now, after a few years of consistent writing, I find those things happen automatically. This allows me to push myself, be more critical of my work and find better ways to communicate on deeper levels that can inspire. I’m less focused on form and hyper focused on content. The work has become the reward because the quality of it has increased, which becomes addictive.

Because of this, I find my confidence to sit down and write has greatly increased. I don’t hope I can put together a good post, I know I can. When we develop confidence in the quality of our craft, the craft itself becomes the focus. It is a joy to create. Certainly, I hope my readers enjoy it, and I believe that they do, but I enjoy it. I enjoy everything about it, from thought, to rough outline, to the work of getting my thoughts down on paper to editing it down to around fifteen hundred words. Every step in the process contains its own reward. One reward leads to the next, and the next and lo and behold the final product is finished and published. I get to enjoy the end goal and more because I enjoyed the work it took to get there.

When work is the reward, there is always something to do, something to go after. Once we have “achieved”, we’re done. There is nothing left. The pages of history are littered with stories of men, women, leaders, businesses and nations who “arrived” and then began the slow descent of decay, fading into irrelevancy. How many college athletic standouts had the life-long dream of playing their sport at the elite level as the goal, then when they got there became satisfied? For many, they had arrived and they stopped working, stopped striving, stopped going for more, next or better. I can think of several off the top of my head that never got another contract after their rookie contract.

Having work as our reward means we always have purpose and direction. As we achieve in one direction, we can shift and challenge ourselves in another. We can go deeper in an area of expertise and become literal subject matter specialists. Or, we can broaden our scope to include related fields and have a wider base of skills from which to attack larger and more complex tasks.

Enjoying work as the reward organically reproduces itself. As we work with others and are constantly learning, we’re also constantly teaching. Joyful enthusiasm is infectious. The best leaders are the ones who get their hands dirty doing the work, not those who order others to do what they will not. As we discover new or better ways of doing things, we readily pass those on to our colleagues, and this truth goes both ways. By fostering an environment where discovery is prized, others’ creativity is allowed to bloom and we learn from them in turn. We challenge each other to higher heights and bigger accomplishments.

In 1954 Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. Doctors and scientists had been in agreement that the limitations of the human heart would make it physically impossible. With in ten years, over three hundred others accomplished the same feat. It took one man who found joy in doing the work to achieve it to inspire hundreds and then thousands to work toward the same. Today, a four minute mile would not even be a qualifying time, and the current mile record is below 3:45.

I’m finding joy in the journey because I’ve allowed the work to be rewarding. There is something new around every corner. It’s fun to do the work I do know how to do, and discover skills that will help me do it better. As I add skill to skill and task to task, along the way I discover I’m creating all kinds of things that “the big dream” kept me from noticing were even possible. You can’t stop and smell the roses in fifth gear. I’ve spent plenty of time living at warp speed, and it had its pleasures, but I have to say; dang these roses sure do smell good.