Seeing emotional labour.

Physical labour mostly starts showing progress immediately. As you keep putting in more bricks, you can see the wall coming up .

Mental labour is subtle. You are writing code or creating a copywriting page. It's not as visible as physical labour, still you can see things moving forward. You can see how many lines of code you have written or words on the page.

Emotional labour is different. It's about making decisions, or learning a skill, or navigating your work in a new direction.

You can make a decision today and we don't know when you'd see the impact of that decision. And you don't have much to show for the effort in making the decision also. You are unable to feel the satisfaction of going through the checklist.

For instance, you decide to join the gym today to feel healthier. It would be weeks or months before you start feeling the change. Or, you decide to be systematic in initiating projects that would bring better clients. It would take multiple iterations before the clients start showing up.

It's easier to choose to do nothing or do what everyone else is doing instead. Posting on social media gives the satisfaction on finishing something whether it works or not.

The way forward is to be intentional and strategic in how you approach what you are working towards. And it helps significantly if you can find the others who'd like to do that too.