Why Doing Work You Find Meaningless is Causing You More Harm than You Think

I read an alarming statistic from a Gallup poll the other day I'll sum up here:

1. 55% of millennials (24-40) are not engaged in their jobs
2. Another 16% of millennials are actively disengaged

That means 71% or just over 51 million millennials in the U.S. alone are not engaged in their work life where they spend on average 50 hours a week.

Let that sink in for a second.

In my experience most of these people are kind, smart, sensible and want to help make the world a better place. If you told them 10 years ago that they would spend most of their waking hours doing something they do not find meaningful, they wouldn’t have believed you. And for good reason, who would wish that life upon someone.

That was not what they were promised. The promise was that after you get a degree, you will get a good job that pays well, hopefully in a growing industry with opportunities for advancement and bonuses. But the reality today looks very different.

So how did we get here you ask?

Before we begin, I believe it's important to preface by understanding that this is not a black and white issue that can be solved by a new policy or program. That often does more harm than good anyways. Attempting to solve a challenge at the surface level without paying respect to the complexity of individuals in an even more complex society is not my aim.

But, the most common advice or strategies are just that, surface level. And the results of those approaches to finding meaningful work look and sound like the clichés that seemingly follow millennials around everywhere they go.

“They have no job loyalty.”

“They are entitled and don’t work hard.”

“They have had everything handed to them.”

Just to name a few.

And while it’s easy to group a generation together and overlay common character traits onto all of them the reality is that belief comes from the same outdated story that has created this challenge to begin with.

There’s something deeper going on. There’s a wide scale failure to create time and space for us to examine the most critically important questions in our life. Of course, the fear is that if we take too much time off to do that our productivity will suffer, but in fact that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

When we take the time to examine our life, create a plan, decrease stressors, and focus on our well-being in all areas of life our work performance increases substantially.

But between the sleepless nights studying to get a degree, 50+ hour work weeks in a new job and attempts to maintain a social or dating life we are stretched so thin that we have left little time to reflect on how to solve this challenge.

Its time that a systems-level approach to personal and professional development of the whole person becomes common place. A good place to start could be balancing the time spent focusing on cognitive learning, route memorization and data with more time to digging into 3 fundamental questions:

• What do I feel deeply passionate about or what am I inspired by?
• If you could do only one thing with your life right now, what would you do?
• What is the very most important thing you should be doing with your time and resources right now?

It’s all too easy to push reflection off until tomorrow. I know what it feels like. It took me nearly 11 months from the time I decided to leave my graduate program to actively begin to move in the direction I desired.

But, what are the costs of doing nothing and remaining in a job or workplace doing work that you don’t find meaningful?

Remaining in this place for too long eats away at us from the inside out. It reduces our ability to be confident and courageous. We begin to believe the story that we aren’t capable of creating the positive impact we desire to see in the world. Our self-efficacy gets called into question because while we desperately want our life to turn out differently, we actively do nothing about it.

If it feels like you’re “selling your soul” and are ready to transition here’s a few things I’m not advising:

-         To abruptly quit your job again.

-         To create a new vision for your future that ignores your present financial reality

-         To remain complacent because the grass isn’t always greener

Change is a process. It takes time. And if don’t know where to start here is a simple framework I call the D.R.E.A.M.S. Framework to help you begin to map out the next phase of your life.

What I do recommend is to develop what your D.R.E.A.M.S in life are and how you are going to get them

-         Determine your destination. Get crystal clear by making a map to where are you going

-         Redesign your environment. Create your environment both internally and externally to match your new goals

-         Energy management. Time is finite. Energy can be renewed. Learn to manage this and your life will change. Becoming indistractible in a habitually distracted world is a super power.

-         Align with your strengths. What activities make it easy for you to get into flow? What are your natural talents and strengths? Learn what they are and spend more time doing them.

-         Master Mindfulness. The new buzz word of the 21st century isn’t going away because it’s the fundamental challenge of being human. And now we the brain science to show that we can rewire our brain and strengthen our mental muscles to thrive in challenging times.

-         Strategize for success. How will you know when you’ve achieved your goal? What micro-steps along the way to you need to ensure you meet? Track your progress.

Do examine the tradeoffs. There’s a switching cost for everything.

Do write down your thoughts and fears. Examine what is true about them.

Don’t compare yourself to others along the way. Only to who you were yesterday.

Don’t focus solely on the money. Money is a tool. It can’t buy you time, well-being or loving relationships.

And most importantly dare to be courageous and create the change you want to see in the world.

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” – Jim Rohn

I welcome your thoughts below or @alex.barilec

P.S. When you are ready here are 3 ways we can connect:

1. Want to learn more and begin creating your life with intention? Check out my FREE 7 Day Email course full of tips and tricks to get you asking the important questions
2. Are you ready to join a community of like-minded individuals? Join the Lifestyle Design Lab on the first Tuesday of every month here to develop life-building skills
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