What a Privilege It Is to Be Tired from the Work You Once Wished For

A Thursday celebration for every do-gooder who forgot to notice how far they’ve come. Also, I'm now obsessed with finding random album covers to match these blogs. 

My mornings at the gym require me to be distracted from the fact my body doesn’t want to be at the gym.

And that means, every morning, I aggressively scroll to find 3 to 8 second entertainment for an entire hour, and it is absolutely necessary in order not to just throw my middle aged arms in the air, give up for the day, and go home.

To accomplish this ADHD behavior, I scroll with the speed and determination of someone who is actively avoiding a task…like lifting another weight or reluctantly going to another machine I’m probably improperly using.

My thumb is an athlete. It has been trained by years of procrastination and an algorithm that knows exactly how to keep me from doing productive things.

But today, something less brain-rot-y crossed my screen that did NOT produce a need to find some other clip. It was just an older lady who simply said:

“What a privilege it is to be tired from the work you once wished for.”

I freaking love this.

Because holy crap, that’s it.

That’s the whole thing.

You Wished for This Remember?

There was a version of you - maybe five years ago, maybe ten, maybe last Tuesday - who would have given anything to be where you are right now.

The version of you who was applying for the job you now have, hoping someone would give you a shot.

The version who was pitching the board on a program idea that is now serving hundreds of people.

The version who was sitting in a cubicle somewhere else, daydreaming about doing work that actually mattered.

You wished for this.

You wished for the nonprofit job. You wished for the chance to make a difference. You wished for the seat at the table, the title on the door, the opportunity to fight for something bigger than a quarterly earnings report.

And now you have it.

And it’s absolutely exhausting.

And that’s real. I’m not going to pretend it’s not. The increasing number of hats you wear are heavy. The board drama is draining. The donor silence is demoralizing. The budget is tight and the to-do list is long and the printer is STILL making that noise and nobody has fixed it since you started at the office.

But the exhaustion? The tiredness you feel at the end of a Thursday in July when the inbox won’t quit and the coffee stopped working three hours ago?

That tiredness is the cost of doing work that matters.

And not everyone gets to be this kind of tired.

There’s a difference between being tired from meaningless work and being tired from meaningful work.

Meaningless tired is the kind you feel when you spent eight hours in meetings that could have been emails, doing tasks that don’t matter, working on things that won’t change anyone’s life. You go home drained and empty. Nothing was built. Nothing was served.

You just…existed through a workday.

Meaningful tired is different. It sits in your bones differently. It’s the tiredness you feel after the event that raised enough money to keep the program running another year. After the donor meeting where someone cried because they finally understood their gift was making a real difference. After the board meeting where something actually clicked and everyone left leaning in instead of checking out.

Meaningful tired is what you feel when you carried something heavy all day and the thing you were carrying was someone else’s hope.

That’s an absolute privilege. 

I know it doesn’t always feel like one. Especially not on a Thursday in July when your AC is barely working and you’re on your eighth coffee and someone just emailed asking if you can “pop together some talking points.”

But it is.

Thursdays are for Celebrating! 

I’m told a really smart guy once wrote that in a book.

I mean it today more than usual.

Because I want to celebrate some things right now that nobody is going to celebrate for you. The unglamorous, invisible, never-going-viral things you did this week that absolutely mattered.

You called a donor and they didn’t answer. But you left a voicemail that made them smile when they listened to it later. That’s fundraising. That counts.

You wrote a thank-you note by hand. It took four minutes. Nobody saw you do it. The donor will keep it in a drawer for years. That counts.

You sat through a board meeting that went sideways. You didn’t lose your cool. You answered the same question for the third time with patience you didn’t know you had. That counts.

You updated the database. You cleaned records. You sorted buckets. You did the unsexy work that nobody will thank you for but every future interaction will be better because of. That counts.

You showed up. On a day when you didn’t want to. When the alarm went off and your body said no and your brain said “what’s the point” and you showed up anyway. That counts more than anything.

Nobody is going to hand you a trophy for any of that. No social media post is going to go viral about your Tuesday afternoon database cleanup. No board member is going to say “great job on that voicemail you left at 4:47 PM.”

So I’m saying it.

Great job!

Seriously. You’re doing incredible, invisible, essential work that most people will never understand. And you’re doing it tired. Which means you’re doing it on hard mode.

And you’re still here.

I’ve sat across from hundreds of nonprofit professionals. And the thing I’ve noticed - the thing that breaks my heart a little - is that almost none of them stop to notice how far they’ve come.

They’re so focused on the gap - the money they haven’t raised, the donors they haven’t called, the appeal they haven’t written, the board they haven’t activated - that they forget to look behind them at the trail they’ve already blazed.

You raised more money this year than you did three years ago? Celebrate that.

You have a donor who’s given every year for a decade? Celebrate that.

You kept the program running through a pandemic, a recession, a grant freeze, and whatever fresh crisis 2026 decided to throw at you? YOU CELEBRATE THAT.

You built something. It’s imperfect. It’s messy. It’s held together with coffee and stubbornness and the occasional creative use of the English language.

But it’s real. It’s serving people. And it exists because of you.

That’s not a job. That’s a calling you answered.

And answering a calling is tiring. Because callings don’t come with unlimited PTO.

SO, I want you to do one thing today. Just one.

Tell someone on your team that you see them.

Not a generic “good job.” Something specific. Something that proves you noticed.

“Hey, I saw you stayed late to finish those thank-you notes. That mattered.”

“That report you put together for the board? It was really well done.”

“I know this week was hard. I just want you to know I’m glad you’re here.”

One sentence. One person. Today. Because they’re tired too. And they might be sitting at their desk right now wondering if anyone notices.

Someone should notice. Let it be you.

And if you’re the one sitting at the desk wondering? If you’re the solo shop with nobody to say “great job” to you?

I notice. I see you. And I’m telling you right now:

What a privilege it is to be tired from the work you once wished for.

You’re living the answer to the wish.

Go celebrate that. Even just for a minute. Even if it’s just a deep breath and a “yeah, I’m kicking ass.”

Because you are.

Ok, now your turn! Tell me:

What’s the one win from this year that you haven’t stopped to celebrate yet?

The donor who renewed. The event that worked. The board member who finally leaned in. The program that grew. The day you didn’t quit even though you thought about it.

Name it. Say it out loud. And then let yourself feel it for a second before you go back to the inbox.

Send me your answer: patrick@dogoodbetterconsulting.com

And if you want a community that celebrates with you - not just the big wins, but the Tuesday afternoon voicemails and the Thursday database cleanups…well that’s what Do Good YOUniversity is for! A room full of people who get it.

LOOK! It's website! www.DoGoodYOUniversity.com. 

There! This is the website to join! You should do that!

And? Together, we’ve freaking got this.

-Patrick

P.S. Happy Thursday! Thursdays are for celebrating! And today, I’m celebrating you. Not ironically. Not as a marketing tactic. Genuinely. You showed up to a hard job in a hard sector during a hard time and you’re still reading fundraising blogs at (whatever time it is right now) because you want to get better at this. That’s not normal. That’s extraordinary. And I’m glad you’re here.