Personal Meaning & Work
Many people in the self-help industry, from therapists to life coaches constantly exhort the benefits of developing personal meaning in our lives.
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Many techniques, theories, and philosophies exist to help a person do just that, therefore I won't spend much time on this topic. One of my favorite has always been the ideas expressed by Viktor Frankl about personal meaning. He discusses the importance of developing personal meaning in one's life in order to truly thrive, Frankl's research laboratory was a Nazi slave labor camp where people died every day, where he himself was a prisoner.
His thoughts and research about this important subject is part of his seminal book, Man In Search of Meaning. I believe every adult should read this book at least once in their lives, especially if they are going through a difficult transition.
Although Frankl may have been one of the first psychotherapists to write about the importance of developing personal meaning, he was not the only one. Many of the great luminaries in the fields of counseling psychology/psychiatry wrote about the importance of this topic. Anyone who took a class in undergrad psychology in the last forty years learned about Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. At the top of his pyramid is Self-Actualization, the final stage of growth, isn't this just another way of saying the development of personal meaning? I think the only difference between Frankl's idea of developing personal meaning and Maslow's self-actualizing stage is that Maslow is more specific in that different stages needed to be obtained prior to the final stage of self-fulfillment.
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My interest in this topic though specifically has to do with work. Since most of us spend the better part of our day involved in work/employment type activity, whether it is your business, another person's business, a government entity's business or parenting (even though you are not paid for it), it is all work. So how do we make what we do meaningful? Do we need to feel personally fulfilled in the employment environment?
I would argue "yes" we do and I know a lot of unhappy working people who would agree with me. So what constitutes meaningful work? It is a specific field, such as social work or serving your government in some way from the military to law enforcement or even the Peace Corps? Maybe it is working for a non-profit that serves others in need. These are all laudable and noble types of work, so does that mean someone working on Wall Street cannot find personal meaning in their job as a banker or stock broker?
My personal opinion (for what its worth) is that ANY field of employment, no matter the job title (from physician to janitor), in any area can provide personal meaning and self-fulfillment. Based on my personal experiences, as well as observations of others and discussions with past clients, three criteria are needed for someone to experience personal meaning in their work:
Passion
Creativity
Autonomy
Passion provides the fuel for creativity, which is why I put it first. How many times have you come across someone who was really competent at their job but lacked any passion for it. I always feel sad when I meet these people. I want to grab them by their shoulders, shake them and say "you are really good at this but you don't have to do this! Please for your own sanity, find something you are passionate about!" But I don't do this, I just hope that they come to this realization on their own before it is too late. When people are passionate about their job, personal meaning and satisfaction in their personal lives can clearly be observed.
I have written at length about creativity in the past. I truly believe that all humans have an innate sense of this particular trait. I say this because I have met so many creative people in such disparate fields. Part of this has to do with the fact that we all have to problem solve at our jobs on a daily basis, in order to solve many problems, people need to tap into their our own sense of creativity.
If creativity is a muscle then problem-solving is an exercise, the more it is used, the stronger it gets. Jobs which are repetitive or have very strict guidelines to follow tend to kill creativity, since problem-solving is rarely needed. Also, I found people who work those jobs do so because of financial security concerns, not because they feel empowered by them.
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Finally, we have autonomy. Autonomy to me means the ability to organize or prepare your work activities with little interference or direction from a supervisor, big boss man, mucky muck, etc. Small business owners experience this to the greatest degree, it is one of the reasons that many start their own business enterprises.
However, many people who work for others or in organizations can have a great deal of autonomy. I once worked for a government organization that provided human services to the public. In my role, I met with my supervisor only once per week and she trusted that I could make decisions without checking with her first. I had a great deal of autonomy in that position an because of it, I thrived.
Interestingly, things changed in the organization after a few years and as a result, I began to lose some of my autonomy. This lead to great job dissatisfaction on my part. It wasn't until years later that I figured out why I had lost the autonomy that I had gotten used too.
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These three criteria must be met in order for someone to experience personal meaning and satisfaction in their work life. We spend so much time with work-related activities that one simply cannot develop personal meaning in other parts of their lives while ignoring this part. A person who is truly interested in self-actualizing must take a hard long look at their work and decide for themselves, am I doing meaningful work or is this work stagnant?
