Tune In To Your Judgements
To discover what truly motivates you, notice and understand what the judge, and why.
From a young age, we’re taught not to judge others. But what if tuning into what we judge could help us discover what matters most to us? According to Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment, the first step to finding fulfillment is understanding your micro-motives (the things you most enjoy doing) and the best way to discover these motives is to interrogate what you judge in others and why.
Uncovering your micro-motives is hard because we live in a society that tells us what to value: career progression, prestige, impact, money, power. Endlessly seeking those outcomes without enjoying the journey to get there can leave us feeling empty throughout the journey–and, tragically, once we reach the goal we’d set out to achieve.
Fighting against this societal pressure to conform is hard. In one of the most depressing passages of the book, the authors write, “[f]or most people, their motivational intensity peaks in kindergarten and steadily diminishes thereafter.” I live with a kindergartener, and it’s sad to think that he's reached his motivational plateau. He’s only six, and his motivations are delightful; he’s fearless and here to explore, make others laugh, and challenge himself–especially physically. His career goals are the trifecta of becoming a monk, geologist, and soccer player. When I look at him, I can’t imagine him finding joy and purpose in the pursuit of optimizing free cash flow.
We all have interests like we did as kindergartener—we just need to rediscover them. Dark Horses profile’s people whose micro-motives range from organizing physical spaces to astronomy, making floral arrangement, and training dogs with positive reinforcement. People thought that each person profiled in the book was crazy when they left a respected job to do that, yet all of them are happier and thriving more now that they are following their own passions.
So how can you (re)discover your micro-motives? The Dark Horse authors suggest playing a three step “game of judgment” :
Become aware of the moments when you are judging someone;
Identify the feelings that arise when you reflexively judge someone; and
Ask why you’re experiencing those feelings.
I’ve been trying out this “game of judgment.” I coach my kindergartener’s tball team, and one area I can’t help but judge is youth sports coaching. I judge how other partners coach kids under 10. I feel anger and sadness when kids are reprimanded for not doing the “right” thing. I experience these feelings because I think that the point of youth sports is for kids to have fun, learn about teamwork, and practice winning and losing with grace.
When I catch myself getting too serious about coaching a child–especially my own–I feel shame. Shame that I’m taking the fun out of it, being too serious, and projecting my competitiveness onto them. I know that this is wrong and unfair.
I’ve surprised myself by judging when I listen to podcasts. I judge how well guests answer questions or explain a point. I think this gets back to the same reason I like coaching: my desire to teach and explain.
This push to explain is what’s led me to write. It’s what led me to move into a more senior role at work where I’m both doing and coaching. It’s also what led me to pitch a recent article to two publications. Though the article was rejected (you’ll see it here shortly), the act of pitching to publications is a recognition that I write to share with an audience—not just for myself.
If you decide to play the game of judgment and find that your micro-motives don’t align with your job, what should you do? I like the framing from Dark Horses enough go quote it in full:
If a new opportunity provides a better fit than your present one and you can live with the worst-case scenario, then no matter how seemingly stable and satisfactory your current opportunity appears, you should still choose the more fulfilling option. The reason is simple. Seemingly small differences in fit can lead to very large differences in fulfillment and excellence. (emphasis added)
The idea isn’t that you should take the road less traveled; the point is to find the road that’s best for you and take that one. Each of us is on our own journey with a unique set of skills, experiences, and capabilities. The sooner you can get on a road that’s leading towards your true north, the better. The first step may be hard, but if you truly believe that the worst-case scenario along that path is better than where you are now, you have nothing to lose except the baggage of societal expectations.
One of the people profiled in the book found his true calling at 57 when he went into the upholstery repair business. Upholstery repair spoke to his need to align physical objects with his hands and be his own boss. If someone can find so much purpose and joy in upholstery repair that they are profiled in a book, you can find it anywhere.