One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed my work is that I tend to always think of my projects as a two for one deal.
For example, I am the Owner’s Project Manager for a new university building, but the real project is learning how to be an OPM on a major capital improvement construction project.
The first project gets me paid, the second project gets me excited to go to work every day.
I wonder if this has something to do with a pattern in my career where I’ve made a change every few years. Once I’ve learned the craft offered by a company, I sense a calling to move on, especially after I’ve repeated the process a few times. At that point, the hidden project of learning the firm’s specialties has lost its appeal since I am well familiar with it.
Maybe a more productive pattern would be to find deeper projects within the projects. Once I’ve got the process down and internalized the typology, I should buckle down explore other the real projects behind the project. Once I understand, I need to find a source of satisfaction in a project beyond just learning something new.
Just asking such a question is scary because it’s a question with no easy answer. But, who knows, maybe this is where the path to mastery might begin.