The Five Factors of Fulfilling Work
Engineer any job so it stays motivating instead of chasing the perfect role.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 85%
Bartlett argues that to be happy and motivated in your profession you need five things, and that the specific subject or job title is far less consequential than people believe. First, challenge: work must get incrementally harder to match your appetite, or motivation dies, as game psychology and Daniel Pink's research show. Second, the progress principle: a felt sense of forward motion, the driver behind Brailsford's marginal gains, whose real power he said was making people feel 'we were going somewhere'. Third, a goal that is subjectively meaningful to the individual; everyone on a team can hold a different reason and that is fine. Fourth, autonomy and control, whose absence is physiologically linked to disease. Fifth, and maybe most important, a supportive community of people you like, which makes the other four better. Bartlett says he has applied these five to psychedelics, Huel, software, podcasting, DJing and events, because with them present the subject matter barely matters.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, where Bartlett lays out the five factors he believes make any profession fulfilling and Ali maps them onto his own Feel Good Productivity framework.
Core principles
- 01The subject matter of your work matters far less than people think.
- 02Anyone could find their passion across many industries if these five factors are present.
- 03A team member who stops being challenged is roughly six months from asking to leave.
- 04Community is the multiplier that makes the other four better.
How to run it
- 1
Keep it challenging
Make the work incrementally harder to the level of the person's appetite. Know the depth of difficulty each team member sits at and keep them one foot out of their depth.
Pro tip An under-challenged team member is about six months from asking for a meeting to leave.
- 2
Create forward motion
Manufacture a visible sense of progress. Celebrate small 1% gains together because they are the easiest to find and they make people feel they are going somewhere.
Pro tip Constantly remind the team, out loud, that you are going somewhere.
- 3
Anchor to a meaningful goal
Ensure the person is pursuing a goal that is subjectively meaningful to them. You do not need everyone aligned on the same reason, only that each has one.
Pro tip Help each person find and name their own reason for being there.
- 4
Give autonomy and control
Give people genuine control over their work. Its absence is physiologically linked to disease and psychological distress; its presence makes people feel like a free animal, not one in a cage.
Watch out Removing autonomy can undo every other factor.
- 5
Build supportive community
Surround the work with a community of people the person likes and is supported by. This may be the most important factor because it amplifies all four others.
Watch out Even with the other four present, a hostile community makes work suck.
In the wild
Bartlett's team found a 1% gain: a trackpad velcroed under the interview table that, when tapped, triggers an AI system listening to the conversation to highlight great moments and send them to the team as notes. They shared the win with the whole team and enjoyed it together, which created the feeling that they had made progress and were going somewhere.
→ A tiny improvement doubled as a motivation and progress ritual for the team.
Bartlett sat with a team member at 9am who he knew had become too comfortable, and told her: give me 48 hours and I will return you to the out-of-your-depth state you were in when you worked together in New York, because he knew that challenge was what she needed even though she had not articulated it.
→ Restoring challenge pre-empted the disengagement that precedes quitting.
Common mistakes
Chasing the perfect subject
Believing fulfilment depends on the right industry or job title ignores that the five factors matter far more than the subject.
Letting a star get too comfortable
A team member who is no longer challenged quietly disengages and is roughly six months from asking to leave.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and managers building motivating teams, and individuals auditing why their own work feels flat.
Not ideal for
Situations where the work is fundamentally unethical or misaligned with core values, which no factor can fix.
From the transcript
“if at one point one of your team members isn't challenged enough, they will quit. You're about 6 months from them asking for a meeting.”
“Humans need that sense of we're going somewhere.”
“If I have these five things in my profession, Steve will be balanced.”
From the episode
Steven Bartlett: 9 Secret Habits of a Multi-Million Dollar Entrepreneur - Diary of a CEO
Steven Bartlett