Meaningful work sounds good, but it isn’t enough, says business coach

Cat LeBlanc.
Courtesy of Cat
LeBlanc.

• Business coach Cat LeBlanc regularly sees clients whose
  work is meaningful, but they’re still unhappy in their
  jobs.
• That’s because meaning alone isn’t enough to make you
  love a job, she explains.
• Your day-to-day work has to align with your mission, or
  you’ll still be unhappy.

It seems like everyone is talking about meaningful work lately.

Having a sense of meaning at work is listed as one of the

top three factors to engagement and employee satisfaction,

studies are done on the most and least meaningful jobs, and a
great deal of attention is paid by upper management to bringing
purpose to work.

But there’s a growing proportion of people who come to me for
business coaching who on the surface appear to already be doing
meaningful work – and they still have low levels of job
satisfaction and are searching for alternatives.

Often these people are in the medical or teaching professions,
the very professions supposed to have the
most meaning.

So why are people in supposedly meaningful jobs still
experiencing low job satisfaction?

It’s not because having purpose in work isn’t important — it’s
because meaningful work isn’t enough.

What I’ve discovered through speaking with many of these people
is even if your work is aligned with your values and you believe
in the mission, it doesn’t matter if your day-to-day job is not
suited to how you prefer to work.

This is because you need to show up and perform your tasks on a
daily basis, and if those tasks are grating against your
personality, you can’t do your best work — and you certainly
won’t feel satisfied.

I have spoken with doctors who feel they are unable to truly help
their patients because of the way they are forced to organize
their schedule.

I’ve spoken with occupational therapists who love their work but
want to be able to try more innovative approaches and can’t.

I’ve honestly lost count of the number of teachers I’ve spoken
with whose restrictive work environments takes all meaning out of
their role.

Related:

Harvard followed 800 people over the course of multiple decades
and found 6 things that make people live longer, happier
live

s

Oprah hit the nail on the head when she said:

“Align your personality with your purpose, and no one can
touch you.”

Your individual patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving
matter, and if you are working against your natural work style,
even with meaningful work, you are still going to be unhappy.

What can you do?

If you are in a corporate environment with little flexibility,
look at where there is freedom within your role to work to your
strengths.

If you work better on single tasks at a time, can you batch
certain tasks so you work on one thing before the next?

If you are problem-solving and are someone who prefers using
proven processes, can you find existing methodologies rather than
feeling under pressure to come up with something on the fly?

If you are in business you will have more freedom over your
environment, but don’t automatically think that everything is
going to just fall into place just because you are the boss!

It absolutely is possible to reconcile your work style with a
meaningful role. The key is to be aware of how you work best
rather than operating on autopilot.

In order to achieve your goals and be satisfied in your work you
need to feel good on a day-by-day basis.

When you approach purposeful work deliberately and work
with your natural work style rather than against it, you
will be infinitely more satisfied and truly get the best of both
worlds.

“Meaning” might sound good, but it isn’t the full picture.

To learn more about aligning your work with your personality
type, download your free individual

Entrepreneurial Design
Profile

.

Cat LeBlanc

helps future online business owners design, build and grow a
business that is truly unique to you, so that you can live life
on your terms. Follow her on Twitter:

@catjleblanc

.