Why You Need a “Secret” Project
An excerpt from last week’s edition of Really Good Work Advice,
a digestible deep dive into what makes a good work-life.
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Erica asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Which should I focus on: getting a new job or finishing my novel?”
This is a question I get all the time and it drives me bonkers. Because it hides the real question which is, “How can I do both? Is it even possible?”
Yes, it’s possible and it is necessary.
We need our novel (or whatever your passion outlet is), to fill our soul, just as much as we need a job to fill our bank account. One without the other will make us feel imbalanced and burdened. Trying to make art with financial anxiety will stymie the art; trying to chase a paycheck without art will render the money meaningless.
In short: you need both. Just as you have different parts of yourself, there are different parts of your life that when working well together, you will be well. It’s the only way to be truly well.
Life is full of nuanced contradictions and yet, our minds are constantly searching for the binary. Things are either this or that. We are either this or that. And so we, like Erica, ask questions that set the world up to be in black and white and set ourselves up in turn for frustration. A false equivalent can only lead to an unhappy choice.
For every client who comes to me stuck in an unhappy job or unmotivated in their job search, the very first thing we do is explore what kind of “secret” project they can create.
It’s a low-pressure way to experiment and explore their interests and curiosities, build up skills, gather information, expand their network, and expand their wisdom.
It also gets them back into the practice of generating – and sustaining – their own momentum. There’s a danger in relying too heavily on any one thing (a job, a relationship, etc), and so your “secret” project can be that necessary reminder to always be your safety net…and that can come in many different forms.