Guest post by Ace Castle.
This is the second installment in the more than one article series that will tell you about my experience these past two years as a Coast Guard public affairs officer.
In the previous article, I told you I am a relatively inexperienced PAO that has a limited time to learn my job and get great at it so I can do my part to protect America.
As I mentioned in the last article, the four crucial traits that have helped me in my career as a pilot are experience, hard work, confidence, and humbleness. In this article I will discuss hard work.
Possibly the most important part of my success is hard work. Translated for the millennials out there, you have to grind.
Grinding, or working hard, is a pretty simple philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, there are times for working smarter. There are times for efficiency. There is even merit to creating a plan. BUT, there is NO substitute for grinding it out and working hard.
But, how does one work hard? If it were that easy, everyone would do it. It all comes down to motivation. You must be motivated to work hard. There are different sources of motivation, and everyone must identify what their best sources of motivation are.
There is a simple, two-prong method to approach this. If you are healthy and have a good reason (at least in your own mind) to do what you’re doing, you will be motivated. Let’s discuss the health part first.
The military takes the health of pilots and aircrew seriously. We have physicals once a year involving extensive checkups, we are required to sleep, have limits on daily caffeine consumption, and can’t drink for 12-hours before coming to work. This is because there is no room to perform less than 100% while flying, preparing to fly, turning wrenches, or any other work that gets an aircraft in the air. Lives are at stake each mission. So, take some advice from pilots who take care of themselves, even if by force.
If you are sick, don’t feel well, are tired, or just generally have low energy levels, it will be difficult to work hard. So, get enough sleep, make doctor visits a priority (they are free, after all), and don’t drink more than Dave B. would*.
The second prong is having a good reason for doing what you’re doing. As any good MaxDis reader knows our first job is to protect America. For some of us, that is all we need, that is our “passion.” But for those that need something more, let’s talk about the passion hypothesis.
The passion hypothesis says everyone should identify their passion, then find a job revolving around it. But some argue that experience and craft mastery are the two keys to gaining a passion for a skill or job. Since I’m covering experience in an upcoming post, I’ll cover craft mastery here.
Mastery is an important part to gaining a passion for a job. “But, isn’t mastery what your entire series of more than one posts is about? How is mastery different than being great?,” you ask.
It’s a self-generating cycle. You need some sort of passion to have the motivation to work hard, to master a craft. Then mastery, in turn, increases your odds of gaining a passion for what you do. I think of it as a continually revolving circle that builds on itself. Once you find a way to force yourself in, you’ll go round and round, getting better and more excited about your job. Getting excited about your job means you will work harder. That leads to you getting better, and on and on.
If you want to read more about this topic, check out the book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” by Cal Newport where he says to attain mastery you must have:
- autonomy (how much control you have over your day)
- competence (how good you (know you) are at your job), and
- relatedness (your relationships with others).
You have just read a lot. So I will break it all down into easy steps for you. To be better at working hard, you should:
- Take care of your health
- Find motivation for what you are doing. To help motivate yourself:
- Identify the strengths you already have and make sure you use them to help your organization and others (competence)
- Build relationships with those you come into contact with, not just those you currently work with (relatedness)
- Use the competence and relatedness you’ve developed to create autonomy for yourself, which gives you more space to be creative and do your work
- As you improve any part of step 2, as long as you stay healthy (step 1), you will get better and your motivation will improve with it. A never ending cycle of awesomeness will ensue and before you know it, you’ll be the best officer (not PAO) your unit has ever seen. This will get you the next job you want, and you’ll be ahead of the motivation curve before you start your transfer.
*I actually have NO idea how much Dave B. drinks, or if he even drinks at all. But from my one time meeting him, he strikes me as a guy who likes to party.
(Photo by Cpl. Ian Bush, DVIDS)
