The Science Behind Meaningful Work: The Key To Happiness and Success

According to an exhaustive report by The Engagement Institute, disengaged employees cost U.S. companies up to $550 billion a year. Meaningful work is more than something that just feels good. It’s also a powerful predictor of happiness and success.?

Working researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other experts have been studying the link between meaningful work and human fulfillment for decades. Their conclusions are clear: People who find meaning in their work are significantly happier and more successful than those who don’t.?

In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at the link between meaningful work and happiness. We’ll discuss why meaning can be challenging to find in your job, how it impacts your performance, how you might find it again if you feel like it’s been taken from you, and what steps you can take to make sure you find it in your future roles.

What is Meaningful Work?

Meaningful work is work that is aligned with your core values, your strengths, and that has a positive social impact. It’s work you enjoy doing and feel good about.?

It’s work that makes you feel like you’re making a positive difference in the world, even if you’re not getting paid to do it. When you’re working on something that’s meaningful to you, you’re much more likely to be satisfied with your job. You’ll know that you’re playing to your strengths and contributing to something significant.?

Meaningful work can take a lot of different forms. For example, it might be working on something that you find intellectually stimulating. Or it could be something that has a clear social impact, like advancing health care by developing a medical device that helps women (like one of my client organizations).

The Link Between Meaningful Work and Happiness

Researchers have found that meaningful work is one of the strongest predictors of happiness. One study found that meaningful work can significantly increase happiness and well-being, even more so than receiving a pay raise.?

Another study found that people who work on things that are meaningful to them are much less likely to experience depression. Obviously, you shouldn’t quit your job and start a charity just to improve your happiness. But if you’re struggling to find fulfillment at work, it’s certainly worth exploring whether you could find more meaning in your current role.

How Does Meaningful Work Benefit Your Career?

Meaningful work can have a big impact on your career. Yes, you will feel more fulfilled, happy, satisfied knowing you are making a difference. You will also be more energized and effective, creating experiences that lead to sustainable success and acknowledgment that honors your passion, authenticity, and integrity.?

You can’t just switch your job to something that has more intrinsic value overnight. Finding meaning in your work takes time and effort, so you have to stay proactive if you want to stay on top of it. It requires persistence and clarity.? If you want to build a career that has intrinsic value, you have to make a conscious effort to build it up. You have to identify what’s meaningful to you and actively work to bring that into your career.

Tips To Create Work Experiences That Are Meaningful

It takes time to build a meaningful career. But even if you’re not currently working on something meaningful, you can use the following tips to create work experiences that are meaningful.?

The 3 most important ways to know yourself that lead to meaningful work include:

1. Know your values.
2. Know your strengths
3. Know your motivations

I call these personal qualities your True North. Once you know your True North, make sure your work is aligned with it. If it’s not, look for organizations whose values align with yours, whose purpose or vision taps your intrinsic heartfelt motivations, and with a job that uses your strengths.?

You’ll know you’re building meaningful work when:

1. You CONTRIBUTE in impactful ways. When we apply our strengths aligned with our motivations, we contribute to others from our Best Self. We become clearer about the ways we want to give our energies that are in integrity with who we are, and who we’re becoming and what will have the most impact for others.
2. You feel a SPARK of energy or inspiration in what we’re doing. When we align our motivations with our values, we’ll feel a spark of inspiration and creativity. We experience a return on investment or ROI on the energy we contribute, in the form of being engaged, alive, healthy, and nourished energetically by our contributions.
3. You experience MEANING in what you’re doing. When we find ways to use our values in alignment with our strengths, and synergize with our motivations, we experience meaning, fulfillment, or significance in what we do.

The following graphic shows the Elements of True North Energy Flow, the source of meaningful work.

Ways Meaningful Work Supports Job Success

Meaningful work makes you happier and healthier (from those sparks of energy), which obviously has a positive impact on your life. But it can also make you more creative and productive (in sustainable ways), help you to network more effectively (looking for that alignment), and open career doors that you might otherwise miss out on (because you’re in energetic flow).?

When you’re working on something meaningful, it’s also easier to be creative. You’re better at creative problem-solving. Research shows that you have more access to your unconscious problem-solving abilities when you’re working on something that taps into your core values.?

Working on something meaningful has been shown to reduce stress, boost energy, improve sleep, and increase your overall health. People who work on meaningful projects are often passionate about what they do, which makes them more likely to want to network with people who share their interests.

Negative Effects of Meaningless Work

If you’re currently working on something that doesn’t align with your core values, strengths, and heartfelt motivations, it can make you significantly unhappier and less productive. It can also make you more likely to burn out and quit. Working on something meaningless can also make you less creative and less likely to network with other people who share your interests.

Finding Meaning in Your Work

If your job doesn’t currently have much meaning to it, there are ways you can start adding it. Start by asking yourself the following questions:?

VALUES

What is important to you? What do you really care about? What are your core values??

STRENGTHS

What are you naturally good at? What would you do if you didn’t need income??

MOTIVATIONS

What makes your heart sing? What do you want to participate in creating in the world??

These are key to finding meaning in your work.?

Once you more clearly know your True North, you can start looking for ways to bring that into your career. You can ask your manager for opportunities to do more of what you’re really good at or care about, change the way you frame your projects, or look for ways to build more value into your work. No matter how far gone you feel your job is, there is almost always room for improvement.?

You can always start that journey by finding the meaning in what you’re doing now, changing things a little bit at a time.

Bottom line

Meaningful work is more than something that just feels good. It’s also a powerful predictor of happiness and success. If you want to be happier and more successful, start by identifying your True North and actively bringing that into your career. Even if you’re currently working on something meaningless, there is always room for improvement.

Join us on December 6th at 1:00 p.m. EST for an impactful Masterclass.

Too many leaders get results by piling on more work or reacting to problems and this leads to stress, eventual decreased productivity, burnout, and even illness.

Join executive culture coach, Karen Tax, for this one-hour conversation exploring how badass leadership is not just cool, but how ‘staying true’ allows you to be a thought leader that gets results.

Be sure to take the?pre-event survey!

During this impactful session, you will:

• Determine the extent to which your productivity is life depleting (Assess your current reality, individuals/leaders and companies - what your proactivity and productivity looks like)
• Assess the cost of hard work that is a grind (What you lose from working this way)
• Discover how to pivot to and the benefits of working light. (How to make pivot and what’s to be gained)
• Learn about the synchronicities that are possible (that my clients have achieved!)