In my work as a writer, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and talking to a lot of inspiring people: CEOs who commandeer unthinkable turnarounds. Young Mexican government officials who want to do good by their people (and believe me, they have their work cut out for them). Experts and consultants who make it their life’s work to help others, to discover some way of doing things better, living life more fully.

Bakers and bookstore owners, toughing out a world of big box stores to purvey a product they believe in. Big thinkers–academics who devote their lives to thinking, What’s next? What came before? And how can we think about it better?

What do the people who do great work have in common? 

They love what they do.

But wait: not the product. No, not the outcome–at least not all the time. (Just ask a published writer, any published writer, what they think of their last piece.)

The job itself may not satisfy all the time. For some of us, that’s even impossible. Still, the act of doing it, of improving yourself? Of learning to be better in the world–your world, whatever it is? That. That is satisfying and highly motivating. Certainly, producing something you care about is satisfying too. But more often than not, it’s the act of production that brings happiness into our places of work.

Much like the “love” we have for our spouses and families, it’s hard work. Some days it’s harder than others. But doing it again and again gives us value and meaning and motion.

I’m hardly the first person to observe this. But I’m also not the first to forget it and choose the easy road or the fun task. So if you want to do 10 things in 2012, start by doing one better. Invest. Commit. Problem-solve. And you will do great work.

This post was inspired, in part, by the famously over-quoted (and sometimes misconstrued) Steve Jobs commencement speech, as well as this animation (based on Daniel Pink’s book, Drive).