The Meaning Of Work
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The science of happiness at work

"If you find a job you love, you'll never work again."
Winston Churchill

 

If 1/3 of my waking hours are to be spent at work, it's important I find a job that makes me happy.

Not buying the hippy mumbo jumbo that all I need is a grass skirt, good vibes and flowers in my hair, I turned to science for some answers. I discovered a new field of science called Positive Psychology. Here, happiness has been scrutinised in methodical studies. 

Here is what I learned...

 

Meaning and Happiness

Meaning

Millennials often get a bad rap for being tree-hugging do-gooders...

We care about the environment, cyber bullying, women’s rights. “It’s political correctness gone mad”.

Traditional employers roll their eyes at our desire to find meaning at work. “What does that even mean?” a tired grey gentleman called Barry will wince.

Fair enough, I can see why these bloody do-gooders are annoying to Barry. If you’ve spent 30 years in a dreary career that merely functions to pay the bills, the thought of a spritely young upstart naively expecting to get something more out of life is understandably irritating. Besides, if they find it, that suggests the previous 30 years of hard drudgery was time poorly spent.

Still, according to those pesky positive psychologists, meaningful work forms a cornerstone of happiness.

Meaningful work: so “what does that even mean?”

Martin Seligman, former President of the American Psychological Association, says that doing meaningful work consists of knowing what your greatest strengths are and using them in the service of something larger than you are.

He tells us that finding meaning makes a far bigger contribution to our overall life satisfaction than experiencing pleasurable sensations like lying on a beach or taking a stroll in the sunshine.

Dr Ben-Shahar says:

“I define happiness as the experience of both meaning and pleasure - at the intersection between the two. [...] You cannot sustain happiness only with pleasure nor can you sustain it only with meaning.”

He talks about self-concordant goals: tasks that combine pleasure and meaning. If our goals are self-concordant, we do work not because we have to but because we want to. For him, teaching is both a pleasurable and meaningful activity.

So finding meaning at work is a broader church than worrying about the polar bears. It could be teaching, raising children, starting a business or working on the next Mars landing. The important thing is to find work that you enjoy doing, that you are good at and that you feel makes a positive contribution to the world. Whilst it may be hard to hit all these happiness triggers all of the time, it doesn’t sound like a bad thing to aim for.

Summary:

  • Meaningful work contributes more to general life satisfaction than experiencing pleasurable sensations like sunbathing in a tropical paradise

  • Setting self-concordant goals helps us fill our time with enjoyable and meaningful activities

Matthew Simmonds