Have I mentioned Marcus Buckingham’s book “First, Break All the Rules” ? I have? Good.

Marcus talks a lot about how we put ourselves through so much nonsense when we work. We assume, as my father told me in virtually the only bad advice he ever gave, that ‘work is work, not fun; stop looking for something fun to do for a living and settle for a real job.’

Well, that’s not how it works. At least, it doesn’t have to. Except nearly 90% of the working people in this country don’t like what they do for a living (I was astonished to discover that this statistic includes the self-employed. Why on earth would you hire yourself to do a job you don’t like?)

Buckingham offers a couple simple useful tools I wanna talk about, but first, a book I just read on the same subject that really expanded my thinking about doing what you love for work.

My friend Jonathan Fields wrote a book called Career Renegade. It is, as the subtitle says, about how to make a great living doing what you love. I’ll quote my Amazon review:

“An excellent read even for those of us already firmly in the entrepreneurial world. Fields knows his stuff and doesn’t gloss over the hard parts. He does, though, deliver on the title. Even though I already love what I do, the book started me thinking about other paths as well.

Absolutely packed with practical information and resources. The success stories are much more than feel-good ‘see? it can be done!’ They’re usable examples.

The list of Career Renegade paths is a tool I’ll use the rest of my life.

I wanted to write this book. Probably best that Jonathan beat me to it; he’s done an excellent job.”

If you’re one of the 87% who aren’t happy at work, consider Jonathan’s book. It will make you think and help decide if you’re ready to move or bluffing yourself.

So where were we? Ah, yes; Marcus Buckingham’s tools.

We tend to go on semi-autopilot when we’re working. We also tend to assume work is work and shouldn’t be fun. The former habit makes it really hard to disabuse ourselves of the latter notion.

Part of Buckingham’s program is to step out of autopilot and consciously analyze how we feel about what we’re doing. The first step to loving what you do every day is to know what you love and what you don’t.

For one week, pay attention to how you feel about while working. Every task, consider whether you’re looking forward to it, or you’d really rather not. At the end of the week, compile the list of what you look forward to in your work, and what you dread. You may find activities clearly grouped, or you may discover that your interests are scattered, but either way, at least you have a starting point: I love this and I loathe that.

If you like fun tools for the process, you can download the ‘Loved It’ and ‘Loathed It’ cards from Oprah.com.

Of course, now you have to know how to offload the stuff you don’t like, and how to amplify the stuff you do. We’ll start there next week.