Is your work meaningful to you?
Maybe this is a question you ask yourself often. Perhaps the answer comes quickly and easily, or perhaps you struggle to find the meaning in your work. Or, maybe you’ve never considered the question before now. Regardless of your response, one of the characteristics that makes us humans unique, as a species, is our desire to know that our presence matters — that our lives have meaning.
Yet, despite this innate human trait, our modern social institutions — our schools, workplaces, and even our families — provide us with little to no opportunity to seek meaning in our own lives. While our ever-growing task-oriented focus — particularly in schools and at work — has made us increasingly effective at getting things done, it has come at the great expense of our ability to process what the doing of those things actually means to us.
Crucially, a lack of clarity about what is and isn’t meaningful in our lives can lead us to feelings of disengagement or disillusionment, like something is missing — a feeling of being unfulfilled in our work and our lives. In the extreme these feelings might manifest as behaviours or ways of working that drain our energies and can lead to a range of unhealthy psychological and physical conditions. The ‘great resignation’ and growing traction of terms such as ‘quiet quitting’ are no doubt in part being fuelled by a growing chasm between people’s work and their search for meaning.
Meaning-seeking is an ability that can be sharpened through practice; by consistently exploring how we define meaning through self-reflection, opening ourselves up to new insights and perspectives, and turning those insights into actionable steps we can take.
Despite the glut of wellbeing and mindfulness apps at our fingertips, the advent of the digital world has done little to support — and likely more to impede — our search for meaning. Although we’re more connected than ever, evidence suggests that we are less happy and more lonely than ever. So too is the instantaneous availability of information harming rather than helping us. The current political and cultural divisiveness that dominates our media and social feeds provide little in the way of constructive exchanges that might foster constructive dialogue and self-exploration.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that finding meaning in our work and in our lives, while also meeting the reality of our circumstances, feels like an almost impossible task for so many of us. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be.
For those people who are curious — or maybe even desperate — to uncover what meaningful work looks and feels like for them, studies have shown that it’s possible to get more meaning out of your work even if your job doesn’t change. Meaning-seeking is an ability that can be sharpened through practice; by consistently exploring how we define meaning through self-reflection, opening ourselves up to new insights and perspectives, and turning those insights into actionable steps we can take.
Our purpose at MeaningSphere is to enable and support people through all three of those steps. We are a growing, for-purpose startup with a simple, but big ambition: to inspire, support, and connect people in their quest to discover and experience greater meaning in their work.
One of the experiences we have created to help people to begin their meaning-seeing journey is Meaning Circles. A Meaning Circle is a 60-minute virtual experience in which a small group of participants share and reflect on what they find meaningful or meaningless in their work, led by a trained Host. What makes a Meaning Circle unique is that there is no “cross-talk,” debate, or discussion on what anyone has shared — only acceptance, free of judgement. Attending a Meaning Circle is a simple and easy way to begin your practice of regular self-reflection and discovery by creating space to reflect on what is meaningful to you in your work and your life and to listen deeply, and non-judgmentally, to the diverse experiences of others.
Meaning Circles are completely free and you can register to attend here, if you are interested.
Visit our website if you’d like to learn more about MeaningSphere and sign up for early access to our platform.
