You chose a path that requires you to accomplish tasks you really dislike. Is that a problem? How often do you have to do them, and what do you gain from doing them?

Finding the balance between effort and reward

There is an important balance between effort and reward. If these tasks are taking you closer to your chosen goals, consider viewing them as allies. These allies help you move toward the things you’ve identified as important in your life, even if they involve unpleasant moments of effort and struggle. They remind you that disciplining yourself to do the things you dislike can lead to the life you’ve chosen and believe is worth living.

The role of discipline

Discipline is only needed for things you don’t enjoy doing. It doesn’t take discipline to eat a piece of chocolate every day; it takes discipline not to eat an entire bar of chocolate every day.

If none of your daily activities require discipline, ask yourself: Is what I’m doing pushing me toward my well-being, or is it doing the opposite? Am I just eating chocolate every day?

When to Reassess Your Path

If your efforts and struggles seem hardly worth it and don’t lead to a life you care about, it’s time to readjust.

Assessing the purpose behind your struggle

The central issue is the goal: Does this effortful struggle move me toward a life I care to live? Yes or no?

Of course, this implies that you know what kind of life you want to live—or at least which ones you don’t want to live.

Recognizing What Brings You Well-Being

You have the capacity to recognize the things that bring you well-being, and building on that capacity is the key to identifying possible goals for your life.

The Importance of Choosing Goals

Yes, you will have to select your goals to feel a sense of progress. The alternative is drifting through life saying, “I don’t know what to do with my life,” and eventually reaching your 40s with the same question: “What should I do with my life?”—day after day, year after year.

The Consequences of Not Choosing

If you don’t choose, you won’t try or accomplish anything, except eating chocolate every day. While that might sound like a delicious proposition, it leads to a very unhealthy, unaccomplished, meaningless, and ultimately unhappy life.

Embracing Your Choice and Its Effortful Path

You must choose and recognize that there is an effortful path you can take—a path you can envision and one that is guided by your perception of well-being. There are many paths to well-being, and by choosing one and pursuing it, you’ll eventually answer the question: Is my effortful struggle worth it?

For people struggling with their career choice.

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Is your effort worth anything?

When you examine yourself and your abilities, do you believe you are capable of doing good things—things that can improve your life or the lives of others? Do you think your efforts can sustain some level of well-being?

Recognizing what’s beyond control

Most things happening in the world were accomplished beyond your personal effort. A simple way to grasp this is to look out the window and count how many things you see that you had nothing to do with. Most of what you see in your daily life was created by other people.

Human-scale effort

Life is made enjoyable through the efforts of countless individuals, all bound by the same human scale.

Your effort is another small part of the world that someone else, looking out their window, will see.

Don’t crush your will to make an effort by focusing on its scale.

Don’t discard your effort; it is absolutely necessary. It makes your life and others’ lives better.

Do you dislike your daily activities?