Busy Work or Life's Work?
How to Stop Filling Your Life with Motion and Start Moving with Mission.
Rather Listen than Read? Here’s the Audio Version:
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I’m sitting in the large blank canvas space that Mosaic Los Angeles calls home. I’m surrounded by ambitious professionals from all walks of life—artists, business people, coaches, entrepreneurs. The energy is so electric that it’s almost a cliché. Brendon Burchard is on the stage, pacing with the energy of someone who knows that he has something to say that will change lives. Erwin McManus, mentor, coach, pastor, philosopher is in the back of the room, radiating a calm, grounded home-field presence. I’ve been to events like this before, but today something’s different.
I can always tell what’s been impactful to me during a really great talk by what I write down. When I’m listening to a really good communicator, I sometimes have a tendency to lose myself in the moment, in the way that they move words and phrases, crafting images and connections so effortlessly that it must simply be magic. But I write this one down:
"A lot of people are doing busy work, but not their life’s work.”
The room goes silent, with the exception of a few voices across the crowd saying “wow,” or “ouch.” Something in his delivery cuts through. I feel a familiar tightness in my chest that shows up any time I hear a truth that I can’t ignore.
This message hit me so hard because just Thursday I did a livestream with my online community on the difference between mission and method. About how people (about how I) get so locked into how they do things that they forget why they’re doing them in the first place. I shared the story of my dead PC and how it forced me to adapt, to take a look at whether I had really been focused on delivering my message or just comfortable with the delivery method.
But now, as Brendon’s words stare at me from the notebook page where I have just written them down highlighted and drawn a little box around them, I realize he’s taking this a full step further. He’s not just talking about adapting methods when things don’t work out. He’s talking about what happens when we have all the methods in the world but no clear mission at all.
On the ride home, I can’t stop turning the phrase around in my mind. There’s a huge difference between having the wrong approach to the right goal and just being in motion without direction. Between activity and impact. Between busy work and life’s work.
I think about that online community of mine. How they rallied around me when that PC died and we lost the regular weekly live touch points that we usually had. How they embody the foundational pillar of “Laugh together, cry together, lift each other up.” Their actions weren’t just kind; they were purposeful. Aligned with something bigger than any individual—myself included.
Today I am writing to you about that distinction. The one between moving and moving with meaning. About why some people burn out even when they’re “doing everything right” while others create immense impact with what seems like almost no effort. Most importantly for you, I want to talk about how to ensure that your movement is always in service of your mission.
The Movement Paradox
Some people never move. They hesitate, they overthink, they get stuck in loops of doubt and distraction.
Others move constantly. They are always busy, always grinding, always pushing forward with relentless energy.
Neither of these approaches guarantees success.
Why? Because movement without a mission is just movement.
I sometimes work with organizations or individuals who like to celebrate all the work they’re doing. But, often, these same organizations and individuals can’t (or haven’t taken the time to) answer some very basic questions around defining purpose and mission: Why do we exist? What do we do? And my favorite of Pat Leoncioni’s Six Critical Questions: What’s most important right now?
You’ve seen it. The entrepreneur friend who launches business after business, but never builds anything that lasts. The content creator who posts religiously but feels no closer to making an impact. The professional who works 60+ hours a week but wonders why they feel stagnant in their career.
The old phrase “work smarter, not harder,” doesn’t fully capture it. It’s not about productivity or systems or time-blocking or any of the other efficiency and productivity conversations we often get locked into. There’s something much more fundamental at stake: the difference between activity and impact.
I have coached clients who can show me beautifully color-coded calendars, perfectly organized project management systems, endlessly deep tech stacks and automations and to-do lists that get checked off with almost military precision (Quarterly invoice prepared and sent? Sir, yes sir!). But many of them are still running in place. Because all of that organization is serving motion but not mission.
During this week’s live stream, we talked about flexibility in our methods. How being adaptable when things break down (in our profession, in our growth, in our relationships) is vital for helping us build resilience. But there’s a prerequisite for this resilience that I didn’t fully articulate until I heard Brendon talk yesterday. You need to know what you’re actually trying to accomplish in the first place.
Most people haven’t defined success for themselves, so they’re chasing someone else’s direction. As Brendon put it yesterday, “Your in-box is an intricate system for organizing other people’s agendas.” Let that sink in. How can you know if your methods are working if you haven’t clearly defined what “working” means to you? If you’re just spending your day checking off someone else’s to-do list? How can you pivot when something breaks if you don’t know where you’re trying to go?
The paradox is this: Movement feels like progress, but without direction, it’s just fancy distraction. Stillness feels like stagnation, but without clarity, action only leads you further into the wilderness. I often have people ask me to help them know if they are making the right decisions. But the issue is often not that they can’t determine if their decisions are right or wrong. It’s that they are simply making decisions based on what’s in front of them and not who they want to be. That lack of overall direction is what’s causing them to get lost, not a broken moral compass.
See, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t “am I moving?” It’s “Does my movement have meaning?”
Mission in Action
In Thursday’s live stream, I shared a story that many of you already know. My primary PC died. Not just a little glitch or a crash. A full-on technological funeral service, complete with a power button that refused to light up and the sinking feeling in your stomach when the Geek Squad calls only to deliver the time of death.
For most people, this would be inconvenient. For someone who has spent three years connecting with a community primarily through live video, it was pretty catastrophic. My regular touchpoints with all of the people that I had come to know and love, into whose lives I have had the privilege to speak, was suddenly at risk. Worse, due to a series of unseasonable economic stressors, there was absolutely no way for me to afford a replacement in the short term.
But the community rallied.
Spearheaded by a few extraordinary individuals, people started reaching out. Messages of support flowed in. And then, something remarkable happened. Without my knowledge, a grassroots fundraiser was started to help replace my equipment. The surprise was sprung on me live, on a streamer-friend’s channel, and in no time at all the funds were there. Not just enough to get by, but enough to ensure I’ll be able to continue serving for a long time to come.
This wasn’t just a nice gesture (though it absolutely was that). It was mission in action.
See, our community is built on a fundamental principle: We show up for each other. We laugh together, we cry together, we lift each other up. Those aren’t just words on a website somewhere or a catchy tagline meant to gain support from outside organizations or to look good to potential donors. They’re a mission statement that drives real action. When my method of connection was threatened (my ability to livestream), the mission (supporting each other’s growth) took precedence over the method.
If more organizations and individuals had missions that were as clear, simple and central as this one, they would get a lot more done with a lot less overthinking, distraction and inner turmoil. But we fall so in love with our mission statements and how they’ll look on the wall or on the website or on our vision board. We overinflate them and bloat them with words that sound activist, but ironically don’t lend themselves to action. Not this community.
This is precisely what we talked about on Thursday. When you’re crystal clear on the mission, you can adapt. You can find a way. When one approach fails, you find another. Not because you’re deeply in love with the method itself, but because you’re deeply committed to the mission behind it.
What was perhaps most powerful is that nobody needed to be told what to do. I didn’t, and certainly wouldn’t, have reached out and asked for the action that was taken. There was no series of meetings or complicated decision-making flowchart. The mission was clear, so the right actions emerged naturally. The leaders knew how to lead, without having to ask for direction. When the “why” is strong enough, the “how” almost always reveals itself.
This stands in contrast to movement without mission. Imagine if the community was just about showing up to hear me talk each week (may God forbid). If that were the case, my dead PC would have been the end of the story. “Too bad, maybe next time.” But because these generous souls had a mission that transcended method, the response was completely different.
That is the distinction I want to explore today. The gap between busy work and life’s work that Brendon highlighted yesterday isn’t just about personal productivity. It extends to how we build relationships, communities and organizations. It’s about whether we’re creating structures that serve a meaningful purpose or just perpetuating motion for the sake of appearing busy. As I sat in that auditorium listening to Brendon, I couldn’t help but reflect on how very lucky I am to be a part of a community that understands the difference—and is willing to teach me through example. I was shown this week, in the most tangible way possible, what it looks like when a group of people move together with a shared purpose instead of just moving in whatever direction each of them chooses based on their own best guess.
Now let’s talk about how you can apply this distinction to your own life and work.
The “Busy Work vs. Life’s Work” Assessment
How do we distinguish between busy work and life’s work? Between motion and mission-driven action?
This morning, after hearing Brendon speak and reflecting on the community’s response to my PC crisis, I’ve developed a simple exercise I call the Mission Alignment Audit. It’s designed to help you see exactly where your energy is going and whether it’s aligned with what really matters to you.
Step 1: Identify Your Mission
Before you can measure alignment, you need to create clarity on what you’re aligning with. Answer these questions:
If I could be known for creating one specific type of impact, what would it be?
What problem am I uniquely positioned for or passionate about solving?
What transformation do I want to help create (in myself, in others, in the world)?
What would I continue doing even if no one recognized me for it?
This last one is important. My wife attended the event with me yesterday and while in line for lunch at the food trucks outside the venue, we struck up a conversation with another attendee in line. This woman was looking down the barrel of retirement and said, “It’s time I stopped doing things for everyone else, and took some time for me.” On the ride home, Patience and I talked about how this phrasing doesn’t sit well with us. It sounds like bitterness around service, which you would think those attending a conference like the one yesterday would understand was key to success and personal fulfillment. But as we talked through it, we began to realize that some people live in an expectation that their service will be recognized. Don’t get me wrong, true servant leadership should always be celebrated, but for the person who’s moving with mission, that’s not the point. If you’re burning out because of a lack of recognition, it’s likely because you’re out of alignment with your true purpose. That’s why it’s so very important to be honest with yourself when answering number 4.
Don’t rush to answer these questions. If you’re struggling, try to think about the moments in your life where you’ve felt most fulfilled. Not happiest. Not most comfortable. Most fulfilled. What were you doing? Who were you helping? What difference were you making?
Write down your mission in a single sentence. I’m not usually a fan of personal mission statements, for all the reasons I mentioned above: we try to fill them with fancy, aspirational language, we try to write them to impress other people, etc. But I’m going to ask you to do it as a part of this exercise. Make it raw. Make it imperfect. Don’t make it for anybody but you. Just make sure that it is specific enough to guide your actions and decisions. It must be clear, concise (use the smallest words you can) and actionable.
Notice the mission statement that my community adopted:
We show up for each other. We laugh together, we cry together, we lift each other up.
If it was hanging on the wall of half the non-profits I work with it would say something like:
We convene diverse populations in order to foster insight around how to create a world where each individual is supported through sustainable processes that bring them fulfillment, help them overcome trauma and ensure ongoing growth.
I joke out of love. These organizations really care and really work hard in their communities. But they also have to compete for grant funding and donations, so they focus so hard on squeezing meaning into a single sentence that they end up with something that is so exhausting it can’t possibly drive action. Don’t fall into that trap! You know you, you know what’s important to you. And this statement is only for you. Just get it down as simply as you possibly can.
Step 2: Activity Inventory
Now, document how you spent your last week:
List your major activities and approximately how much time you spent on each.
Include work tasks, personal projects, relationships, content consumption and everything else.
BE HONEST about how much time you spent on social media, Netflix, and other “default” activities.
The point here is not about judgement. It’s about awareness. You can’t redirect energy that you’re not tracking.
I was talking to a friend the other day who easily works 60 hours a week, but hasn’t made progress on some of his most important goals. But it wasn’t until he started tracking his time and activities that he could see a picture of where all of his focus was directed. Some days, this was cause for celebration, as he could look back and see all of the progress that he’d made. Other days, it was a wake up call and a reminder to be more intentional the next day.
Yesterday, Brendon broke down the average amount of time that people spend scrolling social media and consuming non-interactive, non-learning streaming content. The average person puts in about five and a half hours a day. Brendon’s challenge was: what if you could reclaim even two of those hours a day? What if you even only did it Monday through Friday and let yourself have your normal allowance on weekends? You could reclaim eight hours per week. A full work day. What could you do with an extra work day every week? This is why it’s so important not to fudge the numbers. Don’t be embarrassed or ashamed. Own it, recognize it, and let’s talk about how to optimize it. It’s not often that we actually get a gift of time. What an awesome opportunity for growth!
Step 3: Alignment Analysis
Ok, now that you have all of your activities for the last week listed out, next to each activity, rate its alignment with your mission on a scale of 1-10:
9-10: Directly advances your mission
6-8: Supports your mission indirectly
4-5: Neutral but necessary (basic life maintenance—this is what I call “keeping the lights on”)
1-3: Distracts from or directly undermines your mission
Now, calculate what percentage of your time falls into each category. Most people are shocked to discover how little of their time is spent on high-alignment activities.
When I ran myself through this exercise, I realized that I have been spending much more time talking about creating impact than actually creating it. I have filled my schedule with so many things that support the agendas of others that I have often crowded out the core of the work that actually fulfills my own personal mission.
Step 4: Decision Points
For each activity, I want you to make one of four decisions:
Elevate: Increase the amount of time spent on high-alignment activities.
Reduce: Cut low-alignment activities that are either unnecessary or harmful. You don’t have to give up the scroll altogether. Just commit to reducing it by a specific amount, in favor of doing high-alignment work.
Delegate: Where you can, hand off necessary but low-alignment tasks to others. Automate. Use AI. Put it on auto pay. Spend less time keeping the lights on.
Redesign: Change how you approach necessary activities to increase their alignment. Turn your daily social media check into a focused 15-minute connection with your community, make grocery shopping a podcast learning opportunity, or convert your morning email routine into a prioritized system that puts relationships first.
The real power of this audit isn’t just in the initial insights. It’s in making it a regular practice. I recommend running through this exercise at least once a quarter. Your mission might evolve (they can and do), your activities will certainly change, and the alignment between the two requires ongoing attention.
Download the FREE Mission Alignment Worksheet here to complete this assignment.
Remember, this is not a call to optimize every minute of every day. The point is ensuring that your movement has meaning, that your busy work becomes your life’s work. Because when your activities align with your mission, the energy you expend will not deplete you. It will fulfill and expand you. You will find that you have almost limitless capability.
The Choice: Mission-Driven Movement vs. Default Living
Brendon put it perfectly yesterday: “The inbox is just an intricate organizing system for other people’s agendas.”
That’s exactly what happens when we move without a mission. We become vessels for other people’s priorities, emergencies and goals. We respond to what’s urgent instead of what’s important. We make snap decisions because there’s nothing guiding our decision making process.
If you don’t set the direction for your life, someone else will. And your direction is way too important for you to let that happen.
Looking back at what happened with my PC situation, I’m struck by how clearly it illustrates the power of mission-driven action. My community didn’t require some detailed playbook or a set of instructions. They knew the mission—to show up for each other, to laugh together, to cry together and to lift each other up—and that clarity of purpose generated action naturally. Strong leaders emerged, and everyone stepped up in whatever way they could.
That’s the difference between busy work and life’s work. Busy work fills time. Your life’s work fulfills your purpose.
As you move forward with the Mission Alignment Audit, pay attention to how it feels when you shift your energy toward high-alignment activities. You will likely find that even when you’re doing “work,” it doesn’t drain you in the same way. There is something different about the energy you use and receive when your actions are in line with your deeper purpose.
Do not mistake movement for progress. Do not mistake busyness for growth. Do not mistake distractions for opportunities.
The choice is yours. Will you continue moving without direction and hoping to make an impact, or will you align every action with the mission that matters most to you?
Start small. Take the audit. Make one change this week. Then, let momentum build as you gradually align more of your life with your true purpose. Your whole life is ahead of you. Today can be the day that you make every minute of it count.
Now go be great.
P.S. In next week's newsletter, I'll be diving deeper into the signs that you're moving without a mission and the three shifts that can help you move from motion to meaning. If today's content resonated with you, make sure you're subscribed to catch the follow-up. And if you found anything valuable in today’s post, make sure you share it with someone else who could use it!
And for paid subscribers, I'm creating an expanded version of the Mission Alignment Worksheet that includes additional reflection prompts, a 30-day tracker to monitor your alignment progress, and a video walkthrough where I'll guide you through identifying high-leverage activities that directly advance your mission. If you found value in today's assessment, the advanced version will help you implement these principles with even greater precision and accountability. For just $5/month, you don’t just get content—you get tools. Every week, I create resources designed to take you from reading about personal growth to living it. This week, paid subscribers get:
The Expanded Mission Alignment Worksheet—with bonus reflection prompts & a 30-day progress tracker
A video walkthrough where I guide you step by step through identifying high-leverage activities that drive real impact
The momentum you need to stop spinning your wheels and start moving with mission
Join here, get the tools, and let’s make your movement matter.