Time to read: 5 minutes
Article at a glance:
- Being in your Three Circles doesn’t mean work is always easy or exciting. Most of the time, it’s ordinary, and you genuinely enjoy the process of doing it.
- Every meaningful pursuit comes with a “Stress and Drudgery Tax”: frustrating, difficult, or tedious parts you’re willing to take on because the larger work matters to you.
- Magical moments—big wins, praise, breakthroughs, and times when everything clicks—may be relatively rare. They’re the icing, while the everyday process is the cake.
- A good sign you’re in your Three Circles is that, despite the frustrations and mundane moments, you feel energized by your normal life and hungry to keep learning, growing, and improving.
We talk about the Three Circles a lot, and how we’re always learning about them and striving to find that path where our helpfulness, wiring, and passion overlap.
But what does it feel like when we’re actually there? Can you be in your Three Circles without knowing it?
As with any aim in life, it’s easy to think that once we “arrive,” everything will be perfect and blissful and we’ll never struggle or have challenges again. But that’s just not reality, and it’s not what you’ll find in your Three Circles. (And remember, there’s no “arriving” here either. Your Three Circles will shift and evolve throughout your life!)
In fact, frustration, challenge, and dissatisfaction are part of your Three Circles. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Because we love alliteration, we can think of life in our Three Circles as a combination of the magical, miserable, and mundane moments.
Let’s take a look at those.
The Magic, Misery, and Mundanity of Your Three Circles
The Mundane Majority: The Beauty of the Everyday
The vast majority of life in your Three Circles will just be…normal. You do your work, build your skills, practice, mess up, try again, learn, reflect, and do it all over again.
This is the day-to-day reality of living and working in your Three Circles. And if you’re really in your Three Circles, you love this kind of normal. You love the process. If the magic moments are the frosting, the everyday work and process is the cake. You love the doing.
We asked some Redmond associates what their Three Circle journey has been like and how it feels to be aligned with their work. Here were some of their answers:
“My role feels well-suited to me, but I still like weekends and vacations. Some days I don't want to work. Some responsibilities are stressful or unpleasant. My workload can exhaust me. Yet when I zoom out, I know I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. I love this. I feel fulfilled and energized overall.”
“I’m never completely satisfied with my work. There’s always something more I want to do or try, and I’m always pushing myself to learn new skills. When I fall short, I keep challenging myself. Is it frustrating? For sure. But it’s the frustration that fuels me.”
Misery: Aka the unavoidable “Stress and Drudgery Tax”
As Benjamin Franklin said, the only certain things in life are death and taxes.
When you’re in your Three Circles, there will always be a tax.
In his book What to Make of a Life, Jim Collins calls it the “Stress and Drudgery Tax.” No matter how much you love something, there will always be a part you don’t love.
If you love parenting, there are still diapers to change and messes to clean up.
If you love working with people, there will still be hard conversations and misunderstandings.
If you love writing, there will still be frustrating moments when the words just don’t work, or they don’t land with your audience.
We can take steps to reduce these icky parts, like collaborating with others or shifting responsibilities on a team, but we can’t eliminate them completely. Luckily, eliminating the less pleasant parts isn’t necessary for a meaningful life in your Three Circles, because you know this tax serves a greater purpose.
This is part of your Three Circles, but the question is, which Stress and Drudgery Tax are you willing to pay? Which icky parts are you willing to take on as part of doing what you love?
Magic: The Icing On the Cake
These are the goalpost moments when you see the fruits of your labor. It might be gushing praise from a customer or coworker, seeing a product you worked on hit the market, or winning an award.
These magic moments might be a small percentage of your time, and they’re simply the icing on the cake.
Jim Collins uses gold medalists as an example. How much of their career is spent actually winning that medal, or in the competition that wins them the gold? Very, very little.
But they’re there because they’ve loved the process of becoming champions.
What’s the right blend?
You might ask, what’s the right blend of these three that tells me I’m in my Three Circles?
There’s no perfect answer, but we can tell you this: for the most part, you don’t want the misery to outweigh the magic or even the mundane.
We really like this indicator:
Steve Jobs said that if he woke up too many days in a row without excitement for what he was doing, he knew he needed to make a change. That’s a good gauge. (By the way, a change doesn't have to be extreme. It could mean a process adjustment, a conversation, a tiny responsibility change, or even a mindset shift.)
One of the keys to your Three Circles is that when you’re there, it’s something you sustain for a long time because you’re driven to keep going. For the most part, you wake up excited to live your normal life.
The Magic in the Mundane
In your Three Circles, you’re keenly aware that you can always learn and improve more. There’s always room to grow. This can be frustrating, but it’s also that hunger that drives you to keep learning and growing, and pursuing mastery.
There are also moments when you find a beautiful flow, when everything clicks together, where you remember, “YES. This is why I love this.”
This is what we mean when we say the work is its own reward. This feeling is the reward.
This is where the mundane feels magical and the Stress and Drudgery Tax feels meaningful.
Reflection Questions:
When has an ordinary moment unexpectedly reminded you, “This is why I love what I do”?
When you think about an ordinary week, which parts of your work feel most like you?
What kind of hard work leaves you tired but fulfilled? What kind leaves you mostly depleted?
Which frustrations fuel you and make you want to return, learn, and try again?
After reading this, how do you feel about where you are in your Three Circles?
Chew on this for a while and talk it over with a friend and/or write in your journal!
