Part 2: How to Do What You Love & Love What You Do

Discover how you can take steps toward doing what you love in this article from career coach Suzanne Currier.

Do what you love and love what you do—life is too short (and too long)—not to! Like any good thing in life, doing what you love is a process, and it takes WORK. Sorry, no magic wands here.

From my experience, the journey to doing what you love occurs in 3 phases:

1. Gain clarity. Gain clarity about you. Take time to uncover your values, what lights you up at work, strengths, personality, etc.

2. Pick up. Add more of the things that DO align with who you are and who you want to be.

3. Let go. Let go of the things that DON’T bring you joy and align with your values.

In a previous article, I talked about how you can get clarity. Read all about that here.

In this article, I want to focus on phase 2 – picking up more of the work you love to do!

After you’ve completed phase 1 – getting clarity – you have a direction to move towards. You now can start picking up and adding more of the work you love to your everyday life. Add activities, events, challenges, learning opportunities, or tasks that you’re passionate about and that energize you into your weekly, maybe even daily, routine.

Slowly adding in things that you enjoy doing gives you something to look forward to. It creates excitement and builds momentum. If you keep doing this week after week, just adding 1 thing that you enjoy, before long you’ll be doing more and more of what you LOVE doing everyday.

Here’s what that looked like for me.

During phase 1 of my personal journey, one of the things I learned is that I love helping others be successful. I was really interested and passionate about the topic of people management as a role. This clarity led me to pick up:

• Volunteering to be part of the people management leadership development work within my department
• Learning more about people management science, best practices, tips, and tools
• Supporting my HR colleague in the development and execution of people management training

These activities gave me increased purpose and meaning. I felt empowered. Picking up these activities reminded me that I’m in control of how I invest my time and my talent. As I picked up things I loved to do and added them to my week, I realized I was happier and more fulfilled by my work. 

Where can you start?

Start by answering this question: What is 1 thing - that you love to do - that you can pick up and add to your week? Just one thing. Look back at your clarity list from phase 1 for guidance. Think about how you can incorporate that into your week, this week. 

Here are some examples to get you thinking:

• Do you love building a good spreadsheet to make sense of chaos and get things organized? If so, you can offer to build a spreadsheet for your manager to improve team order and reduce complexity.
• Do you love to write? If so, schedule a 20 minute meeting with yourself and a notebook.
• Do you love sharing your expertise? If so, identify 1 way to teach, share, or mentor someone.
• Do you love the topic of health and well-being? If so, brainstorm ways to bring this topic to your team in a future meeting.
• Do you love dreaming up ideas, innovations, and strategies for the future? If so, offer these skills to help a customer, partner or colleague brainstorm ideas.

So what’s the 1 thing - that you love to do - that you can pick up and add to your week?


I’d love to hear from you, drop me an email and let me know what you’re going to add to your week! If you’re stuck and you’re not sure, let me know. I’m happy to brainstorm together.