What Makes Your Work Meaningful.When you think of meaningful work, you think of Mother Teresa or Princess Diana or maybe Peace Corps workers or schoolteachers and nurses. These are all great works that are meaningful. So how can you make your work meaningful, even when you’re not directly improving anyone’s life? These five tips will turn your job from tedious to meaningful work.
What Makes Your Work Meaningful.
look at the full picture
Why does your job exist? You could be a human resources manager , a grocery store cashier, or the CEO of a technology company. Each of these jobs is necessary to make the world a better place.
Because this is no longer an agrarian society, you need the grocery store cashier to get food. CEOs of well-run companies provide not only goods and services to the community, but also jobs with paychecks for many people . And hiring managers can make people’s lives better by helping them advance their careers , finding and providing the best benefits, and hiring great people.
If you only look at the tasks in front of you, you will forget how you contribute to the community as a whole.
treat each other with kindness
One kind person can turn everyone’s day from a chore to a fun one. Yes, work still works and sometimes it’s hard, but working with the right people can make you want to go to work even if the work is hard.
A man who worked for a brewery as a delivery man might have seen his job as hard and monotonous work. After all, his job duty was to drive from restaurant to restaurant, carrying huge kegs of beer and taking out the old, empty ones. But people in many restaurants cheered when the beer boy came in with the kegs of beer. Her act of kindness to him changed his job from a drudgery to one he loved.
If you stop and ask about someone’s day , or follow up on how their new kitten or baby is doing, you’ll make them feel loved and appreciated . That’s significant right there. And the advantage of this for you is that because you are kind to others, kindness spreads and people will help you.
Work hard
How does working hard make a job meaningful? Well, hard work often equals success. When you are successful in your job, you help others in your department to be successful in their jobs. When your entire department is successful, the company is successful. That is quite significant .
Besides, hard work is easier than avoiding it. Think about it: When you have to worry if your boss knows how much time you spend surfing the internet , that adds another layer of complexity to your job. When you work hard all the time and your boss walks by, it’s not a big deal.
When you stay on top of your work, you’ve lowered your stress levels. Now, of course, some people are overloaded and can’t achieve everything. You may start to feel like “I can’t do everything, so why bother?” These feelings of stress and failure can be very tempting, but don’t give in. First of all, you’ll start to feel like your job just doesn’t make sense, it’s just work. Second, that adds extra stress on top of your head.
Instead, what you do is go to your boss and say directly, “I have five tasks on my plate right now. I can do four effectively, or I can do a lousy job on all five. Which would you prefer?» or “I have five tasks on my plate right now. I only have time to do three of them. Which ones should I skip? »
look outside your work
Does your meaningful work have to be your day job? Of course not. Sometimes your day job can fund your meaningful work. Balancing work and personal life means having a life . Whether it’s through your family, your church, your charity, your art, or whatever is important to you, you need a paycheck to back that up .
You may consider your job as one that does not contribute to the community and does not improve people’s lives, but if it supports your family, then it is meaningful. If it allows you to donate to the poor and support meaningful causes, your job is meaningful work.
You don’t have to meet all your needs through your paid job. You don’t even need to feel guilty about working for a large corporation instead of a small nonprofit. It’s not bad to earn money. It finds its meaning in how you can spend that money.
Consider changing jobs
If you just can’t see how your current work is meaningful, and you can’t find a way to make your work meaningful, then maybe it’s time to move on. If your job doesn’t bring you joy, doesn’t allow you to support your family or essential charitable causes , and doesn’t help your community, then it may not be the job for you.
No one has such a small and unique skill set that there is only one job in the world that will suit them. And if you don’t have marketable skills, get trained in new skills. You don’t have to invest in a college degree if that’s not your goal.
You can take courses online. Many MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are free or low cost . You can enroll in a vocational or technical training class. There is no more meaningful job than a plumber, for example. Think about how the world has been changed for the better by running water and working sewage systems.
No matter your age , you are not stuck, even if you think you are. You may have limitations based on your current situation, but you’re never really stuck. If you want to find meaning in your work and work, figure out what you would need to have to make it meaningful to you, and then go find it.
Meaningful work does not have to be synonymous with charity work. Each person can find meaning in their work and in their lives. Hopefully, your job and her purpose may overlap, but if not, you can still manage both.
The bottom line
Don’t limit yourself to your current situation. Change only happens when you want something better. If you want something better, a job that is more meaningful to you, do whatever it takes to find a more meaningful job.