(what if?) that is the actual work

Promoting, cleaning shit up, creating your look and getting ready every day.

The difficult conversations.
The fixing of unforeseen problems.
The setting of boundaries when you least expect it.
The nurturing of social structures surrounding whatever it is you do.

= your actual job

—

Years ago there was a meme trend for yoga teachers with “What people think I do” versus “What I actually do”.
I forgot what the specifics were, so I looked it up. What people think I do was actually specific to a person or a group.
So you’d have like “What my parents think I do” or “What my students think I do” or “What the New York Times thinks I do”.
The latter with a picture of inflexible people trying out poses way over their head, because we were in the aftermath of a critical article which, if I am not mistaken, was called “Yoga Wrecks Your Body”.

Yet although the interpretation of what it was the yoga teacher did varied, where the yoga teacher themselves was usually content with meditation sessions where they checked their watch all the time, doing long relaxation pose or a supported child’s pose (and nothing flashy);
At least everyone was on the same page.

Everybody thought a yoga teacher did yoga.

This is of course a very logical thought, because it is our most distinguishing feature.
However!
This does not mean that it (doing or teaching yoga) is what determines our professional success, or even what we are doing most of the worktime.

Mapping out our teaching schedule.
Promotion (creating content and being online).
Doing our own yoga.
Keeping our website updated.
Email correspondence.
Preparing classes.
Travel time.
Having social interactions before or after class.
Cleaning the studio time. *

My estimate is 25% actual teaching hours, 75% tasks as illustrated above.
But yoga teachers are not alone here;
This goes for so many types of work.

If you’re thinking about a career switch, or exploring new directions?
Look at that 75% of the not-doing-your-work, before making a decision!

The 25% of whether or not the real work is ideal, a true match, or if it is work which remotely appeals to you?
Irrelevant.
At least when it comes to making a non-passion based job decision.
You’ll manage, you’ll find a way.
Yet, if you are not the right person to rock that 75%?
Oh, that’s gonna be one hell of a painful work path.

So, nuff said about that scenario.
Because similarly to yoga teachers, we are usually not really thinking about a non-passion-based job right?!
We may have one, and it’s good to know this whole thing about the 75%, but where we wonder if we can do it…… wonder if we can “make” it?
That is our passion, our creativity, our calling, our purpose.
Like the yoga teacher, we already know what it is we want to do.

Work which has come through deeply felt passions, or through an unstoppable need to help out or to contribute.
It – THE Work, OUR Work, the area of interest or the places or people we just love to hang out with, the things we like to DO! – it all comes through us and out of us, and the only choice we have is how to navigate this force.

It’s those areas where we need to be strategic.
And it‘s here, the “75% rule” can help make a choice, or should at least be considered!

So let’s say, hobby scenario, right?
You have a passion, or feel a call to do something and contribute.
Choose a way to limit extra tasks! Instead of settling for the meager 25% spending the time on what you really like doing, try upping it to 50%, or a hundred!

For example, a lot of people do voluntary work because they like the social interaction. But if you do it in an area where you normally don’t reside, you’re not going to build your network in your own neighborhood, and you’re also going to invest hours in travel time.

So “even” when something is a hobby or unpaid, beware that you don’t pick up work that is not the aspect you like about the job.
That’s not your passion-based part.

But one way or another, hobby or leisure time activities usually have a way of sorting themselves out.
Even without knowing this.

However, the most difficult areas are when we work because we are passionate about a certain cause, or because we have a different sort of calling or interest in it, and yet?
Oh, we find ourselves resisting all kinds of little, annoying, administrative hurdles and returning tasks, that we feel we need to “get by” in order to get to the “real work”.

It’s in those moments, that this blogpost is your wakeup call.
Those smaller tasks?
That is the work.
And in many cases, if you’re a professional it’s how you deal with those aspects that make you stand out. They’re usually way, and I mean WAY, more important, than the direct quality of your “real” work.

In 1983 a then unknown Bon Jovi had their first big show. They were the support act for ZZ Top. A stroke of luck! Because their debut album had not even been released, and the night before the two shows they had actually played for 30 people in a club in New Jersey.
Jon had been so nervous for this small gig, he’d lost his voice and it took all he had to go up on stage.

Yet the next day in Madison Square Garden he played it like he owned the place. “I lived there, it’s no problem.”

Jon even had to improvise, because guitarist Richie Sambora’s amplifier had blown up at the first chord of this important show.
The guitarist still remembers: “It was like slow-motion: ‘Ohhh, no!'”
The crowd, whom had been polite at first, was starting to get rowdy, shouting “ZZ Top! ZZ Top!”.
Jon took off his guitar and threw it to Richie.
“It’s all on you, play the guitar!”

They went through a 30 minute set in 17 minutes, but they did it!
(source: The funny story of when Bon Jovi was ZZ Top’s opening act) 

Even then you could see Jon Bon Jovi was more comfortable dealing with that “75%” often overlooked work necessary to perform in front of tens of thousands of people;
Than the skills required to entertain an unexpectedly intimate audience.

Which is in line with the fact that from the get go, he went for becoming a big rock n’ roll band, and did not even consider settling for the security of an income cover bands in New Jersey were close to being guaranteed at the time.
All or nothing.
“There was no Plan B,” he remembers.

So whether you are faced with technical problems on your first big break;
Or have stage fright when there are only a few people showing up.
Make sure you’re all geared up for the 75% of the work that people, parents and the New York Times, don’t realize you do.

‘Cause that?
Is your actual work.

 

~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

* I teach yoga in Nijmegen, https://declubyoga.com/

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