I did something really crazy last month, and I’ve waited until now to tell you about it.

I took a job.  On Jan. 31, I officially started working for BrandGlue, a Facebook marketing agency in Washington state, to head up their sales and marketing initiatives.  I work remotely from my home office on my terms.  As long as I get the job done, our CEO is happy.

You might be surprised–as much as I’ve preached about creating your own work to live your life, why am I taking a job?

Part of it is for the consistent income to help me focus on building my business the right way.  Part of it is to sharpen my skills as a marketer to better serve my clients.

But a lot of it is so I can figure out what a “real job” is.

Except for a couple of fast food jobs in high school, I’ve never had a “real job.”  When I was 11, I started a lawn care business (big business, let me tell you), taking my parents’ lawn mower from door to door offering to mow lawns, and reinvesting the revenue back into gas.

In college, I did freelance web design for a while, then started a marketing consultancy.  And I took my marketing skills to the small business world after I graduated.

But I’ve never had a real job.  And I believe that, if I’m going to effectively serve my purpose and help people be successful by working for themselves, I need to understand where they are now and what they deal with day in and day out.

Working for someone else is physically and emotionally draining.

In my current role, I’m a salesperson.  As an introvert, interacting with people is a physically and emotionally draining activity.  So as I’ve been doing it day in and day out over the past three weeks, I’ve been going through life pretty much like a zombie.

I’ve started avoiding social activities–I haven’t been to my martial arts classes in two weeks because I just don’t want to be around people.

I believe this experience really highlights the importance of finding work that fits with your natural talents.  In my situation, I can learn to be an extrovert in a sales role, but it doesn’t suit my natural communication style.

When you have no energy, there isn’t much motivation to succeed.

Nearly everyone, regardless of profession, will end up doing work that drains them.  You, too.  That work, I’ve discovered, can totally drain you of any motivation to be successful.

The pressure that I’ve experienced thus far in my new role has been so great that all I want to do at the end of the day is sprawl out on the couch and play video games.

And so, at the end of the day, when I preach that you should get off of your ass and start working for yourself, now I get it it. I’ve heard all sorts of excuses.  ”I don’t have time.”  ”I don’t know what I could do to earn money.”  While those excuses seem to be true, I find that there is usually more to it than you recognize.

It’s all part of something deeper.  You don’t want to create work for yourself. Before you jump out of your chair, unsubscribe from my mailing list, and write me a nasty email, think about it.  Do you really want to expend extra energy after a long day at work?

It’s not about the work, though.  I’d wager that you do want to create work for yourself.  You just don’t want to expend the energy to do it.  And so you rationalize the idea away.  ”I don’t have time.”  ”I don’t have an idea.”

It’s about the energy. To successfully create your own work, you need the time, the energy, and the inspiration to step out into the unknown.  And a draining job robs you of those needs.

In order to find that energy and inspiration, you have to create work that feeds and inspires you.

Improve your condition today by shifting the way you do your job.

Work is draining because it doesn’t fit your natural talents and abilities.  In my example, I’m forced into a situation where I have to perform as an extrovert when I’m one of the most introverted people you’ll ever meet.  For extroverts, staying cooped up inside of a cubicle all day is maddening (whereas someone like me would enjoy it).

The important part, I believe, is to seek out your natural talents–the activities that energize you, the prospect of which pulls you out of bed in the morning–and to proactively shape your job to be more in line with who you are.

Let me give you three steps on how you can find work within your existing job that fires you up.

Three steps to negotiating for work that excites you in the job you already have

1.)  Identify your natural talents.

Think back through your personal and professional lives.  What excites you?  What fires you up?

To get really deep into this subject, I recommend the free online Keirsey Temperament Sorter for finding your personality type and StrengthsFinder 2.0 ($12.86 at Barnes & Noble) for discovering your natural talents.  Make sure you buy a new copy of StrengthsFinder, because there is a one-time code in the back of the book to take the assessment online.

2.) Identify alternatives to your current situation.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” – Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland.

If you want to improve your quality of life at the workplace, you need to know what alternative you would like to pursue.

Start by making a list of the tasks and circumstances that you dislike about your job and the environment you work in.  This should be easy.  Most people spend hours of their time bitching about their jobs.  All you’re doing is writing it down.  Don’t stop until you have at least 25 things.

Next, write down everything that you do like about your job.  This is going to be a little harder–we tend to focus on what we don’t like far more often than we focus on what we do enjoy.  Again, don’t stop until you have 25 things.

Applying the strengths and abilities that you identified in step one to the likes and dislikes of your job, what can you do differently? The goal here is to craft a new way of approaching your current job description such that you can accomplish the same results in a way that is better suited to your talents and abilities.

3.) Step up and take control.

With every element of your life, you are in complete control.  You don’t have to settle for the role that your boss has defined for you.

So here’s what you’re going to do.  Ask for more work.

Using the list of alternative ways to successfully complete your job, bring up one new idea to management that will add value to the company in a way that is better suited to your natural talents.  You may have to work more, but if you choose the work wisely (meaning it is something that you will enjoy), the added work with be energizing rather than draining.

You should be able to complete this task quickly and easily with tremendous results if it is a good fit for you.  After you have done so, take your results back to management and ask for a second alternative task.

By stepping up and taking additional responsibilities, you’ll set yourself apart from 99% of the other employees in your workplace.  You’ll position yourself as a self-starter and an innovator, giving you leverage to ultimately craft a new job description for yourself in which you focus only on tasks that energize you.

What can you improve about your current job?  What is the first step in doing work that fires you up?