Nuggets for Nuggets: Your Relationship with the Work You Resist  

In The Tactical Suck, I encouraged young aviators to spend as much of their careers as possible doing the work that best matched their talents and interests in service to others. 

That isn’t just better for you. 

It’s better for your teammates. 

And ultimately, it’s better for the organization. 

But there was an important caveat. 

To earn the opportunity to spend more time doing meaningful work, you have to become proficient at the blocking and tackling of your chosen craft. 

The administrative work. 

The paperwork, planning, maintenance, logistics, and supply. 

The management tasks almost nobody looks forward to but are part of most worthy endeavors. 

It took me far too long to realize that what made many of those duties miserable wasn’t the work itself. 

It was my relationship with the work. 

For years, our community drafted our own performance evaluations before they were reviewed and edited by our supervisors. The evaluation process was tedious, the writing style that it demanded was unique and awkward, and the process consumed far too many work hours. However, our organization had selected the process, and we were not in a position to change it. 

Every evaluation season sounded the same. 

Complaints. 

Groans. 

Procrastination. 

Hand wringing. 

Whining. 

I joined the masses for several years. 

Eventually I realized something embarrassingly obvious. 

Complaining wasn’t writing the evaluation. 

Avoiding the work wasn’t making it disappear. 

The only solution was to become good at writing evaluations. 

So, I built a system that enabled me to draft a solid evaluation in a couple of days which was a fraction of the time my peers would spend on their evaluations.  

Instead of dreading the process, I simply began the work. 

Something interesting happened. 

The task itself never really changed. 

My relationship with it did. 

Once I became competent, something I once dreaded became routine. Before long, I could write thoughtful, fair, and well-supported evaluations quickly, which not only benefitted me, but also the people I supervised,because they received better feedback and more thoughtful advocacy. 

Competence creates freedom. 

The more efficiently you handle the fundamentals, the more time, energy, and credibility you earn for the work where you can make your biggest impact. 

I’ve come to believe this pattern exists almost everywhere. 

The “suffering” we experience while avoiding difficult work is often greater than the discomfort of simply beginning it. 

The “fear and loathing” is usually worse than the work. 

This is one reason I often say that actions must drive feelings—not the other way around. 

If you wait until you feel like tackling an unpleasant task, you’ll often wait a long time. 

But if you begin anyway, you inevitably benefit in some way. Usually, you end up learning something new or growing in ways you never expected. At the very least, you may realize that it wasn’t nearly as bad as you anticipated—an experience that can hopefully reshape your outlook the next time you face something similar. There is also the sense of contentment that comes from knowing the job is done. 

Discomfort gives way to momentum. When I was a dedicated athlete, I often didn’t feel like training. However, as soon as I started, I was happy that I had. The work was hard, but gratifying, and I felt happy and at peace when I finished.  

So here’s a question. 

What task are you currently dreading? 

Instead of wishing it away, consider changing your relationship with it. 

Become exceptionally good at it. 

Build a system. 

Start before you feel ready. 

You will discover that the task wasn’t nearly as painful as you imagined. 

And by removing the friction surrounding the work you don’t love, you’ll create more time and energy for the work you do.