Should Work Be Your Holy Grail?
The Sustainable Ambition View:
While work can play a role in contributing to our happiness, the dogged pursuit of the perfect work fit or for meaning in one’s work shouldn’t overshadow seeking and finding fulfillment in the rest of our life, too.
Why it matters:
Societal norms tell us to set a high bar and ask and expect a lot from our work, which can set us up for disappointment.
We can meet our needs more realistically if we recognize that work meaning can look different for each of us and can be shaped, our careers are journeys of discovery, and we can be empowered to take responsibility for creating more meaning in our lives holistically.
Behind the thinking:
The pandemic has made many of us rethink our work ambitions and how we want to create meaning and fulfillment in life.
To be sure, work can contribute to and impact our happiness, and we should seek to optimize it for ourselves. In doing so, it’s important to note that we are not all wired to be fulfilled in the same way.
And, we need to be a bit more gentle on ourselves in setting our expectations around work. For example, we are often told to search for our passion and that often can feel like an impossible pursuit. Beyond passion, today workers also hold a high bar for employers to deliver on purpose, which is often hard to find. Plus, our satisfaction and ambitions around our work can change over the course of our lives from decade to decade and lifestage to lifestage.
These expectations and shifts can often lead to our career exploration and journeys becoming at times painful, as I’ve experienced and I so often hear from friends, coaching clients, and podcast guests.
To take some of the pressure off, it might be better to take a satisficer vs. a maximizer view (accepting good enough), as Clare Davenport talks about in podcast episode #23.
Or, as we’ve talked about on the podcast and as the book “Range” notes, to accept that work journeys are about evolving towards better “match quality” as we learn about ourselves over time.
And to remember that our lives are about more than work. For some of us, it’s really important to find purpose in our work. But others may be wired differently. In both of the podcasts we feature below, our guests emphasize to look outside your work to find meaning. Bethanie Baynes said: “Stop thinking about your job as the only place for fulfillment,” and Will Schafer, who did seek work that better aligned with his values, still said that one shouldn’t feel they must find purpose in work: “There are so many other ways to get a sense of meaning and purpose and contribution in your life.”
While we can find meaning in our work, we shouldn’t all ask it to meet all our needs, just as we wouldn’t expect a partner or friend to meet all our needs.
What’s next:
Take the pressure off. Stop seeking work perfection. Land or ground yourself and be in the experience and journey towards finding your career match, learning and honing over time.
Better understand yourself and what you are seeking at this stage in your career, optimizing for life+work meaning and fulfillment now.
Be empowered and take ownership for creating meaning and purpose in both your life and work, and release the expectation it will magically come from outside yourself.
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