There are days when you feel like giving up.

Days when the pain of caring so much about the work you do, work that isn’t landing, isn’t connecting, isn’t making a difference, leaves you wanting to care less.

You feel that the hard days would be a little less hard if you didn’t take it all so personally.

That the criticism, and worse, the non-reaction would be a little easier to swallow if you didn’t have so much of yourself wrapped up in the work.

Into it, you’ve poured your time, labour, pain, hope, heart, soul, and shimmering belief for what the world could be.

Your work is the sum of your very best self, and when it fails to connect with someone, maybe with anyone, you’re left wondering what that says about you.

So yes, it might be easier, and less painful to pull back, to care less, and if you’re looking for an easy life, maybe that’s the best option.

But if you’re looking to make work that connects with, interacts with, and changes people — and I think you are — the easy road is not the one that will take you where you’re looking to go.

More than your time, labour, pain, hope, heart, soul and belief, your care is the biggest investment you can make in your work.

Without care, it all falls flat.

Rather than pull back when the pain of caring about work that isn’t connecting is almost too much, ask, “How can I care even more? What have I been holding back?”

Lean into and through the pain.

It means you’re onto something.

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Want to hear more about building an audience around work that matters? I think you might enjoy these reads!

https://medium.com/@jeremyenns/this-shouldnt-be-easy-87723f846009https://medium.com/@jeremyenns/this-shouldnt-be-easy-87723f846009