{"id":924,"date":"2019-07-13T09:05:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-13T09:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/?p=924"},"modified":"2019-07-13T09:06:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-13T09:06:43","slug":"is-your-work-meaningful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/07\/13\/is-your-work-meaningful\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Work Meaningful?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As we\u2019re entering the vacation season, many of us are going to take a step back and reflect on where we are in our professional lives. To what extent is our work aligned with our personal goals, norms and values? Does it help us grow and develop as professionals and as individuals? Is the direction of growth still the one that\u2019s the highest priority for us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my collaboration with companies, I frequently\n meet individuals that seem to have succumbed to the \u2018boiling frog\u2019 \nsyndrome. Although their job might have been a good match for them at \nsome point in the past, over time more and more activities, \nresponsibilities and tasks have been added that have made the position \nless and less aligned with their implicit purpose. Their growth has \nplateaued and the excitement long gone. The consequence is a situation \nwhere people crave vacation to get a reprieve from the constant grinding\n of a job that has lost its luster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\n my request to you, my dear reader, is to use the time that you\u2019re away \nto reflect on whether your work is (still) meaningful to you. As we \nspend most of our waking hours during the week at work or thinking about\n work, wasting time on a job that\u2019s not in line with what you want to \nget out of your life is a humongous waste of human capital. Seth Godin \ncaptured this in a wonderful quote: \u201cInstead of wondering when our next \nvacation is, we should set up a life we don\u2019t need to escape from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n challenge is, of course, that thinking about what it is that makes your\n work meaningful immediately raises the question what your overall \npurpose in life is. In an earlier article<\/a>,\n I reflected on this mostly from an organizational perspective, but of \ncourse, there\u2019s a personal side to this as well. Although Robert Byrne \ndefined the answer to this question as \u201cthe purpose of life is a life of\n purpose\u201d, actually defining what it is that feels purposeful and \nmeaningful for you \u2013 for you<\/em> personally \u2013 is a very difficult question to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\n most people, a meaningful job has two dimensions: personal growth and, \nin some way, helping others. In Maslov\u2019s theory, the highest level of \nthe pyramid of human needs is self-actualization. As most of us have the\n first four levels figured out, the focus for personal growth has to be \non self-actualization, which is defined as \u201cthe realization or \nfulfillment of one\u2019s talents and potentialities, especially considered \nas a drive or need present in everyone\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Especially as one reaches\n mid-life, many directions and aspects have been tried out and \nexperimented with and the risk is that you end up getting squarely \nrooted in your comfort zone. I believe that it\u2019s imperative for a \nwell-lived life to ensure that you break out of your comfort zone on a \nregular basis. Although we, in the first part of our lives, tend to \nfocus on changing our external circumstances, I believe that as you \nbecome more mature, you start to realize that the focus should be on \nchanging our internal perspective, viewpoint or paradigm. Many have \nchanged their external circumstances, eg by changing jobs, only to end \nup in virtually the same situation after a few months. In a recent article in the Atlantic<\/a>, Andrew Brooks discusses his journey and I think it\u2019s a wonderful read during the vacation season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n second dimension of a meaningful job is to help others or, in general, \noffer a positive contribution to the society or culture that you\u2019re part\n of. My experience is that everyone, deep down, wants to leave this \nearth in the knowledge that they contributed to some improvement in the \nworld. Something that made things better, in some minor way, than what \nthey were when we arrived. It\u2019s easy for this to get snowed under the \ndaily noise of life, but I think that regularly reconnecting with your \npurpose and reflecting on how your job is meaningful in achieving that \npurpose is important. Of course, over the course of your life, your \npurpose evolves and changes and this may require you to reflect on what \nit means for your job and the rest of your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a \nwonderful quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: \u201cTo laugh often and \nmuch; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of \nchildren; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the \nbetrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in \nothers; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a \ngarden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has \nbreathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding, I believe that living a life of purpose is critical for a well-lived life. The purpose you choose is entirely up to you, but choosing some purpose that feels meaningful for you is mandatory to avoid feeling empty, disconnected and living a life that you constantly want to escape from through vacation or other means. As it is such a large part of our lives, we should ensure that our jobs are meaningful and connected to our purpose. And what better time than your vacation to reflect on this question and plan any changes that you feel you need to make!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I will also take some vacation, my next article will be published in mid-August.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get more insights earlier, sign up for my newsletter at<\/em>jan@janbosch.com<\/em><\/a> or follow me on<\/em> janbosch.com\/blog<\/em><\/a>, LinkedIn (<\/em>linkedin.com\/in\/janbosch<\/em><\/a>) or Twitter (<\/em>@JanBosch<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we\u2019re entering the vacation season, many of us are going to take a step back and reflect on where we are in our professional lives. To what extent is our work aligned with our personal goals, norms and values? Does it help us grow and develop as professionals and as individuals? Is the direction … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}