Using Your Strengths at Work - The Three L's Exercise

Love it, Loathe it, or Live With it

The best jobs/careers are those we love to do. The worst ones give us the Monday Blues. According to Go Use Your Strengths at Work by Marcus Buckingham, if we use our most significant strengths at work then we will love our work. This exercise will help you determine what your strengths are and ways to use them so you don't get the Monday Blues.

Buckingham says to look at what you love and what you loathe - I say add to this what you can comfortably live with. I believe that there are tasks in one’s job that we don’t love but we don’t loathe either so I call these, live with it, tasks – these are the things that are basically neutral to us – we can live with them – I use the 80/20 rule here and tell people that if 80% of the tasks they do in their job are things they love and 20% they don’t necessarily love but can live with then it’s a good job for them.

If it’s the other way around, they hate or have to live with 80% and only 20% they love then this is not a good match for them. The key is to love what you do most of the time. So how do you decide what you love and what you loathe? Well, it’s pretty simple – energy and excitement and zero procrastination. When you love something you simply get to it.

When you loathe something you have no energy to do it – it becomes a have to and not a want to. You dread it, you put it off, you hide it under a bunch of other things, you avoid it and find ways out of doing it, if you can. Sometimes you even get sick on the day you have to do it or you run late or you lose the paper the instructions are written on.

When it’s something you can live with, that is it’s neutral to you, then in most cases you just go on autopilot and get it done. Some examples of live with it are: Returning phone calls, answering emails, organizing your desk at the end of the day, going to company meetings, staying current on company policy and procedure, doing reports, or simply working at 8-5, M-F work schedule.

Of course one person’s neutral is another person’s loathing – personally I hate writing reports and I don’t want to work an 8-5 schedule ever again but for many people these are live with it activities. Some people hate meetings and others don’t mind them – I don’t mind them myself, you have to decide which ones fall into which category.

The Five-Day Test

For this exercise you will need three small notebooks. Put Love It on one, Loathe It on another and Live With It on the third one. Now for the next five days review what you do each day and write down at the end of the day what you loved, loathed and could live with. If you are currently unemployed then think back on a job that suited you in most cases and pick a random week and use your memory to do the exercise.

Love it Tasks - The First L

On your Love It notebook write down each day what you love doing. As I said, you will be able to tell what you love by how you felt doing it. Some of these tasks will have tangible results and some won't. For example making a sale or finishing or even beginning a project is tangible - things were accomplished, things you can point to as completed tasks. But some things you may love to do may be less tangible. For example building relationships within your work group or team may have less tangible results, but if you felt that a conversation with a co-worker, team member, boss or subordinate felt positive and productive even though nothing specific was accomplished, still count that. When looking for what you love, notice how you feel while doing it or afterward - one of the signs of loving something is getting lost in it - one writer calls it Flow - if you lose track of time then you are in the flow.

Loathe it Tasks - The Second L

In your second notebook write down everything you loathed this week in your job. Take into account any stress that may be occurring - for example if you normally don't mind going to meetings or filling out forms or dealing with subordinates or your boss but this week you were on deadline for something important and you didn't like these interruptions, then these may not truly be loathe it tasks.

Think back not only on this week but your work life in general and only note the tasks and activates that you loathe no matter what. For example, I loathe repetitious detail - I don't ever want to be an accountant or person who has to keep track of things. I can deal with, that is live with, a certain amount of this but it can't be more than about 5% of the whole. So only write down in your loathe it notebook those things you truly loathe.

Live With It Tasks - The Third L

Now we come to those tasks that we can live with. Most jobs have a certain amount of this. These need to be fairly neutral. As with the love it tasks, you can tell by your feelings. Are you dreading doing a task then it goes in the loathe it notebook, but if you feel neutral or okay about it then it's a live with it task. For some people an example of a live with it tasks is answering emails or reading them. For others this might fall into the love it or loathe it column. Another example is attending staff meetings, some people enjoy these and some hate them and many are just okay with them. If you loathe them and your team has a daily meeting then this might not be the right job for you, but if it's a once a week occurrence then you might be able to live with it even though you really don't like going to meetings.

Review Your Notebooks - Use the 80/20 Rule

After your week is over and you have had a chance to review what you found out about what you loved, loathed and could live with then take a look at the results using the 80/20 rule. For a job or career to really fulfill you and bring you the rewards you want both psychologically and financially it must have an 80% love it base of tasks to do each day. If it does not then it is time to think about how to change this.

What happens if we find that we have a reversed 80/20 rule, we mostly hate what we do at work or maybe it’s 50/50 – how much does the loathe it come into play and what can we do. Here are some suggestions:

Evaluate whether this job is a good fit for you – if the loathe it is more than 20 – 30% then change needs to happen. It may be time to seek another job or career. A good career counselor who knows about strengths and helping mid-career changers would be a great help for you at this time.

If you either want to stay in your current job or feel you must for financial or other reasons then start small and begin to change the job itself. Begin to eliminate or delegate or re-design your job to get rid of as many loathe it tasks as possible. Let your boss know that studies show that happy workers are more productive than unhappy ones. You can also look at personality types (The MBTI is a wonderful tool for this process) and how different types love different things and so finding someone to do what you find tedious and loathsome is not as hard as it seems since one man’s loathing is another man’s loving.

Look around at the people in your work group and evaluate their strengths – do a trade off – do what they loathe because it's what you love and vice a versa.

Focus on what you love and toot your own horn – especially do this where there is a direct result to either the bottom line of the company or the productivity of your work group.

Remind yourself of your strengths everyday – Write them on cards and post them where you can see them – when new work assignments come your way evaluate whether they fit your strengths and don’t volunteer or allow yourself to be assigned new work that is not one of your strengths.

Always go where you bear the most fruit – this is your strength in action – pay attention – be authentic and live your strengths everyday.

This exercise is often an eye opener and can help you make changes in your work life. Most people want to love their work and feel happy and satisfied at the end of the day, doing what you love is one of the best ways to make sure this happens.

Happy Working, Lorraine

Fearless Career Strategies

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