Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Finding Your Meaning at Work

Faced with distasteful, repetitious tasks and overwhelming to-do lists at work? Here are some tips to help you keep from losing sight of why it is you do what you do

By Roberta Vriesema, Representative

The discussion regarding meaningful work and doing work that fulfills us, along with the idea that if you do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, in my opinion, is vastly overstated.

The discussion and the idea are great. And I do think there are rare situations where someone has created their job where they are able to only do the things that bring them joy each and every day.

But the concept of meaningful work can actually bring more frustration to people than help. It highlights that this utopian dream isn’t being fulfilled, despite our efforts to get there.

At the same time, there is a kernel of truth that shouldn’t be dismissed and that we can use to bring us back to a more helpful approach of finding meaning at work. Finding our personal meaning at work, or to phrase it a different way, finding meaning for working, can help us when we are faced with distasteful or repetitious tasks and overwhelming to-do lists.

Over the years in my work as a union representative, I have visited many, many workplaces. I’ve also grown up outside Canada and seen how work is both the same and different in each country.

Growing up in Bangladesh, it was very common for me to see young children with baskets on their head full of steaming cow manure. They work in straw and small twigs to form the manure into patties and slap them onto the sides of their mud- and dirt-constructed homes to dry.

When I was 12, I remember laughing so much when my visiting grandmother asked why homes were “decorated with dots.” My father asked a young child—probably seven or eight years old—to explain what those “decorations” were on their house.

The young girl, who understood why I was laughing, also laughed. Cheekily, she told my grandmother, “They’re so we can eat!”

Puzzled, my grandmother looked at us for an explanation. Those manure patties were the fuel for their cooking fires. The young girl worked hard every day so that her family could eat.

She had no trouble finding meaning in her work.

Most people can express why it is they are doing the job currently assigned to them, but many have difficulty finding meaning in their work as clearly as the young girl making manure patties. When people don’t have a connection to meaningful work, research show it’s a significant cause for job dissatisfaction.

If you’re struggling to find meaning in your work, here are six ways to help you find it.

Every job has a reason for existing. Because if it didn’t, it would become redundant and eliminated. Explore and drill down to find the meaning of your job at your workplace.
Every worker has a reason for working. Because most times our jobs are defined by what is available to us within our skills and supplies our needs outside of work. Explore and drill down to find your meaning for working.
Every person has a reason that motivates them each morning. Because we are all connected to some meaning for life. Explore motivational quotes and sayings and see if you can find one that helps you define your meaning for life. I’ll close this blog with one of my favourites.
Your meaning at work can come from within you. You do this because you choose to do this.
Your meaning at work can come from outside you. You do this because it’s important to your workplace and your colleagues or because it supports your family and your needs.
You find meaning at work because it fits into your higher purpose for being. Drilling down and reminding yourself about why you do what you do can help you keep doing what you need to do!

To close, here are the words that I have posted prominently in my office and in my home:

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

If you’d like to explore more on this topic, I recommend Patrick Lencioni’s book Three Signs of a Miserable Job.

Finding Your Meaning at Work

You might be interested in