Pursuing your goals is much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. While you ultimately seek the final outcome, you still have to work piece by piece.
Since you will spend most of your time trying to make progress, you must enjoy what you are doing in order to finish.
Take joy from the process, and use the small successes to fuel your continued efforts.
Louis Minella spent a career planning every detail of the presentation of department stores. He knew everything about the business of catching the customer’s eye and using the layout to maximize sales.
After thirty-one years in the business, he took early retirement. And then he looked for something worthwhile to do.
Louis decided to open a mailing center, where people can ship packages, buy boxes, make copies, and send faxes. It was a major adjustment. “I used to be just one member of the team in an international organization, but now I’m in charge of everything.”
The hands-on difference was most significant. “Before, I was dealing with group managers. I used to issue reports and orders, but I didn’t personally do the work or do anything other than tell other people what to do. I’m in reality now.”
He takes great joy from the daily hurdles overcome, like adjusting the hours of his star sixty-six-year-old employee to keep her content or fixing the leaking ink in the postage meter machine or figuring out how to copy a seven-hundred-page document.
“It’s a different ball game here, but it’s tremendously satisfying to learn every little thing that your business needs.”
Life satisfaction is 22 percent more likely for those with a steady stream of minor accomplishments than those who express interest only in major accomplishments.
Orlick 1998