Meaningful Work, Career, and Contribution

“At work, most of my needs are met, with the exception of the need to have a positive impact on people’s lives.”

“I am appreciated for what I do, and I enjoy my work. I only wish I could do the exact same thing, but modify the part where wealthy individuals become even richer by helping others, thereby improving the quality of their lives.”

“Although I am content with my current role, I’ve realized that it does not have the potential to lead me to where I want to be in the future.”

These are some thoughts that were shared with me during my coaching sessions. Only recently, after a conversation in which I shared my own questions about how I feel professionally, did I see the common idea. Most of the professionals I interact with talk about searching for purpose, meaning, or a form of contribution. It is not something that suddenly happens. While some of them already had this in mind, they gave other needs—like financial security and job promotions—higher priority. Others feel that their view of life and roles has widened, and they are eager to understand how they can expand their impact too.

I learn from their processes and share my own experience with them, when I can, hoping that they will find worth in the milestones that helped me get closer to an answer.

How do you make the most of your time and abilities?

I once read a biography of Hilary Clinton’s life while on vacation many summers ago. I vividly remember reading about her struggle to decide whether or not to enter a career in politics. She spoke with several people in various fields, most of them politicians or changemakers. I was especially touched by a conversation she had with her pastor, sharing her fears openly. The pastor asked her if she considered herself fit for the job, beyond her worries. She replied that she did, but when her fears took over, she struggled to remember this. The pastor then invited her to imagine the end of her life, asking a single question: “How did you make the best use of your time and abilities?”

What would motivate you to start with enthusiasm every working day five or ten years from now?

Towards the end of completing my MBA, I decided to partner with a good friend of mine to launch a new business. We were both keen to start a new chapter in our entrepreneurial endeavors and we were both persuaded to do this with a co-founder. We were unsure of exactly what we wanted to do. Although we had some ideas, none of them sparked inspiration. So we started generating as many business ideas as possible. In order to differentiate them, we created a matrix containing questions to help us evaluate each concept. Each idea received a score for each question, which was then weighted for relevance in the decision-making process. We went through a few iterations to weight the questions properly. We ended up considering perhaps the most important question of all: “How enthusiastically would we wake up five or ten years from now to continue working on this idea?”?

What are your pillars of a fulfilling life?

After my job at Amazon, my initial plan was to take a sabbatical to return to Romania and work to clarify my next career steps. I began coaching, did a lot of introspection, and had many serious conversations with people whose life vision I admired. I also completed an exercise to identify pillars that would contribute to a fulfilled professional and personal life for me. My intention was to be clear on these pillars so that I could use them as a checklist for activities I felt had potential.

This process helped me name the following pillars:

1. Intellectual Challenge, as I regard this as a pathway for ongoing development,
2. (Co-)creating, setting up a space or activity that aids me in manifesting my own visions and ideas,
3. Quality relationships, working in an environment that encourages quality relationships in all facets of my life,
4. Education, doing something that enriches knowledge for myself and others, and
5. Financial freedom, engaging in activities that contribute to my wellness through financial security.

Can you envision the different scenarios?

Another exercise I practice is inspired by the book Designing your Life (Bill Burnett and Dave Evans), which involves imagining different scenarios of my life and assessing the challenges and benefits of each one. This exercise has helped me notice that reality is a combination of things I desire coming at the cost of other things I value, such as work flexibility and being a part of a high-achieving culture that always pushes the limits. Playing with the scenarios is eye-opening in that it helps to discover more aspects of life while making one professional decision compared to another. It is also a very powerful way to entice the senses through imagination and writing, which contributes to gut feelings about which scenario is best.

A crucial aspect of our journey to professional development is asking ourselves what brings meaning to our work. Most of the time, it signals that we are getting closer to shifting the focus from “what we do” to “why we do it.” It also demonstrates a rise in what Maslow called “self-actualization” on the scale of human needs regarding meaning, inner potential, or experiencing purpose.

Asking questions is also the first step towards truly altering one’s career path to incorporate more meaning. If nothing was done to change the environment, test something different, or make a move after ten or more years in the same industry, one cannot talk about unhappiness or a lack of fulfillment.

Questioning is indeed valuable when it is followed by action and commitment.?

What is your experience with searching for meaning in your professional life and what has helped you so far?

#meaningfulwork #growingandblooming #leadersgrowtogether #actionispower