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The Business Acceleration Free E-Newsletter Series
Volume 1, Issue No. 5
September 1, 2002
By
Dan Coughlin
IT'S YOUR 80,000 HOURS. DO WHAT YOU WANT!
Imagine you're back in college. The professor announces that your entire grade is based on one project. He then gives the following guidelines:
- You can do anything you want for your project.
- You have to invest at least 80,000 hours into the project.
- At the end of the project, you evaluate your performance and assign yourself a grade for the project.
- There are no other rules.
Many students would be depressed. They would say, "But that's not enough information. Where do I start? What do I do? What activity is worth an investment of 80,000 hours? How will I know at the end whether or not I was successful? How will I know if I'm making progress toward what I want to achieve with this project? What if I change my mind halfway through the 80,000 hours and want to focus on something else? Is that a failure or a success? How can I give myself a grade? I mean isn't the point of school that someone else grades my work? This is too hard."
A few minutes later the professor looks up and says, "Oh, by the way, the name of the project is 'Your Career'."
Look, you are going to invest roughly 80,000 hours in your career. (40 years, 50 weeks per year, 40 hours per week.) Why not decide right now what you want your career to look like. Decide on the purpose of your career. Decide what defines success in your career. Decide how you will measure progress. And by all means, don't let your boss or parents or spouse or friends or the media decide what a successful career should mean to you.
It's your 80,000 hours. Be very careful what you do with it because at the end of the project you are the only one who is going to give you a grade. My bias for you is to make it a masterpiece of your own choosing.
Republishing Articles
Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.
Take care and have a great month!
Dan Coughlin
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P.O. Box 1245  Fenton, Missouri 63026
Phone 636.825.6611 Fax 636.825.9831
E-mail info@thecoughlincompany.com
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