How to find meaning in work. Work or work - what is the meaning of human life We need recognition

In 2013, the research company Gallup conducted a survey among residents of 142 countries. Respondents were asked about their job satisfaction: whether they consider their work important, whether they have the opportunity to grow and learn. The researchers found that satisfaction is the exception rather than the rule: only 13% of employees are satisfied with their work, while 63% are dissatisfied, and 24% do not like it. In this regard, The Atlantic asked researchers David and Arthur Brooks to talk about how to find meaning in work.

"At least one in eight employees is involved and can contribute to the company's operations," Gallup said in a study. In such realities, it is difficult to talk about economic growth and productivity.

New York Times columnist David Brooks and American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks have been studying this trend for a long time. Both researchers admit that job satisfaction is only weakly dependent on the level of wages. "You're just as likely to love a job that pays $30,000 as you are one that pays you $300,000 a year," says Arthur Brooks.

Researchers offer some tips on how to turn your job into a calling.

Connect work with ideals

David Brooks says writing columns for the NYT has always been a pain for him. “I kept thinking about what to write next,” says Brooks. However, writing became more interesting when Brooks began to think about his ideals. For him, the columns were an opportunity to create a political dialogue with the reader and give them insight into the situation in the country.

Find significant moments

“There are significant moments in every work,” says Brooks. He cites his own creative process as an example.

For each article, I read about 200 pages of research. Then I go to bed and the next morning I put all these pages in piles. Each stack is a separate section of my article. So it turns out that the column size is about 800 words, and on my floor it looks like 14 stacks of papers.

According to Brooks, the process of writing an article is not just about typing on the keyboard. “For me, it’s crawling on the floor and analyzing all these stacks of papers. At this point, the best ideas creep into your head and the structure of the article appears out of thin air. It's almost like a prayer," says Brooks.

Serve others (or not?)

Arthur Brooks was going to build a career as a horn player. But then he came across Bach's answer about why he became a composer. "The ultimate goal of music is the praise of god and the recognition of people." Brooks realized that he could achieve recognition as an economist by focusing on improving the lives of the poor.

Brooks compares career to marriage. “No one gets married thinking: “Will I get more out of this than I put in?”. You should start your career thinking, “Who can I help? What will I pour my love into? Am I completely absorbed in the process?

Ask yourself why are you doing this

When people meet in Washington, they often ask the question: "Where do you work?". And much less often: “Why do you work there?”. According to Arthur Brooks, the second question is no less important.

Brooks mentions Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theology. It contains the reasoning that unhappy people are always chasing money, power, pleasure, and fame.

We all want these things. This is evolutionary biology. But we learn from The Sum of Theology that nature doesn't care if we're happy.

According to Brooks, we, first of all, should not work for money, power and fame. A good job is one that leads to a happy life and seems like a calling.

Follow the fear

David Brooks advises asking yourself what would happen if you were not afraid. “I think fear is a great GPS that shows you where you want to go if there are social obstacles in the way.” He adds: “In every profession there are certain fears and unpleasant moments that need to be overcome.”

Remember Career Stages

“Those people who become successful take their major steps in their 20s and 30s,” says Arthur Brooks. According to Brooks, people in their 40s and 50s are just developing their skills. “At this time, you already write wonderfully, but you can no longer come up with new ideas as well.” In their 60s and 70s, people become good teachers and are able to pass on their skills to the next generation, Brooks said.

Brooks found that the happiest people are those who divide their careers into different phases. “Every twenty years you need to radically change your career. If I were now writing about what I wrote 13 years ago, it would be terrible,” says Brooks.

Don't invest everything in work

Arthur Brooks believes that a balanced life should consist of 4 things:

1. Faith in something greater than yourself.
2. Families.
3. Communities.
4. Works

“If you only have one item on that list, life is incomplete,” Brooks says. “It's like investing your whole life in Greek bonds. It's not worth the risk."

Hello!
Firstly, immense thanks to you for the "question-answer" section, you read and read, you understand something for yourself, and then you yourself are ready to formulate your question, and when you formulate it, what is happening becomes clearer to yourself.

I'm fine. I am 24, I graduated from university, I travel a lot around the world, periodically living in some remote country, I have a wonderful young man, we have no more serious problems than going to the grocery store, I have excellent parents and a sister. Apart from occasional missing relatives, I do not experience melancholic or negative emotions. The problem is at work.

I like working. If I do something, I do it with all the involvement and diligence. And the very fact of work gives me joy. The thing is, I don't like the very essence of the vast majority of the work.
(Here I will immediately say that this is only my personal perception, I do not say that this is really so)

All my peers, friends and acquaintances work in jobs in which I do not see the point. Someone is actively selling something, someone is sewing dresses, someone is making jewelry, someone is taking pictures, someone is writing, someone is drawing, someone is setting up production in a factory, someone is a model, and someone is a project manager. All these works seem meaningless to me. If there are a certain number of dresses, jewelry, photographs, magazines, drawings, factories, billboards, cars, etc., etc. less in the world, absolutely nothing will happen. How can you seriously engage in something that does not make any sense?

I cannot work as a doctor or someone else who brings tangible benefits, I have to work in such jobs with a "zero" charge (and not a minus, and not a plus). And I work periodically, but I only work when a lot of bills have already accumulated and the interest-free period on credit cards is coming to an end - I am aware that I am doing garbage to solve money problems. And for myself, I consider it better to limit my needs instead of pointlessly making money from them.

Speaking of "meaning", this is only my perception, I do not impose it on any person, but on the contrary, I really want to be convinced of this, because I sincerely envy everyone who sees the meaning in their work. Because I really want to work, I love to work, and I want to do it all the time, not by raids. Like all normal people :)

What meaning do you see in your work? What about your readers?

Hello!
The first thing I see in your letter is a contradiction - at the beginning of the letter it is written: I like working. If I do something, I do it with all the involvement and diligence. And the very fact of work gives me joy.
And a paragraph and a half later we read: And I work periodically, but I only work when a lot of bills have already accumulated and the interest-free period on credit cards is coming to an end - I am aware that I am doing garbage to solve money problems.

So do you work with all the involvement and diligence and you like it, or are you consciously "doing bullshit to solve money problems"? These are, however, different things. Judging by the first part of the letter, there is some kind of activity that you like. So you don't do it when you earn money, and you earn something else? Or is it all in one - and you like it, and it seems like garbage? :-)

In any case, the first thing I would suggest is not to rack your brains about why and why others work at their jobs. They have a million reasons why it makes sense to them. And the fact that you don't see the point in it doesn't bother them. If you ask them, surely everyone will justify their actions. And it won't make it any easier for you if you don't consider your activity to be something serious or worthy.

I can tell what drives me when I work.
There are a lot of motives here.
First, I like to work. and like to receive the results of their labors. I like to develop somewhere, learn, grow, and I also like to suffer crashes, because it is interesting, and also teaches me a lot. And the feeling is good when you survive the next crash and manage to survive.

Secondly, I work to earn money. Money is a very important resource for me. For me, being able to earn my own living means a certain degree of freedom. Live the way I want to, make many decisions on my own. Also, I (like many who have ever experienced really very serious financial difficulties) have a “fear of poverty” for life, the fight against which is one of my main “testing grounds” in working on myself. In general, money is a very interesting resource, it is neutral, but it can be turned into a variety of channels, giving it both a very negative and a very positive character. I used to be very bad at handling money. Then, with great interest, I learned to do it better. I'm interested in how they work: how they appear and disappear, how they can be stored, attracted, or burned. It's as interesting as learning how to spend your energy, creative energy or time.

Thirdly, I believe that routines are what "fall apart last" when a person feels bad. At the same time, work is far from being in the first place among such routines - it is not the last to “dry out”. (There are still such simple things as eating, getting up every day, getting dressed and washing up until you completely fall to the bottom.) But still - when I feel bad, when I have grief, when I am sick (disgusting, but not yet fatal) - work , this is my motivation to get up and move, at least in a minimal amount. It's not always easy, but it disciplines me. And everything related to work brings a certain structure to my everyday life, this is important for me. For example, five days a week I work, two I rest. I am a freelancer, but it is important for me that weeks and months are not some kind of endless series of identical days, but that there are different days, holidays that you are waiting for, and weekdays that you need to reach the end. And I am "gathered" by the fact that there are deadlines, people are waiting, new interesting projects are waiting, work on which I "must earn myself" - by finishing the previous ones first.

Fourth - I know why I make all my t-shirts, tattoos, gifts and stuff. I understand that the world is already so crowded with t-shirts and things. which is getting ugly. I also get nauseous sometimes. But I regularly see both sides of the coin: on the one hand, I go into warehouses with myriads of t-shirts, and I think: “God, this is enough for the whole world until the second coming, where more t-shirts for humanity ?!” On the other hand, I have left the house many times (or rummaged through the Internet) for the specific purpose of giving a specific person (or myself) a T-shirt. And then I see that there are a million of them, and I like one and a half. Those. "more or less like" or "very good" - much more than one and a half. But they like it so much that "Yes, this is what I want to immediately buy and wear" - almost nothing. It's strange - there are so many of them, but "mine" is not there. Or extremely rare - surprisingly rare. The same with gifts: I have walked around the city more than once (and I live in a city where the gift business is so flourishing, there is nowhere else such expanse!) to buy gifts for different people. Or I was looking for myself - a mug, bed linen, a table stand, a bowl ... And "everything is not right" or there is nothing that I like. Or I see a repeating picture: before the new year I go to 20 stores in the city center, and I see only 4-5 items that I like - but these items are everywhere! it seems that a bunch of gifts were thrown into the market, five of them turned out to be especially successful, and suddenly all the stores ordered them! After that, you do not dare to buy such a thing: you understand. that all the other inhabitants of the city have walked along the same paths, and they will obviously buy the same thing there. And that one. whoever I give it to will get the third copy from me...

In general, I began to make my own things for myself: everything that is in my store is what I myself once lacked. It's just that at some point we started doing it in small print runs. Because many of my readers think the same way. And for them (Oh, happy accident!) sometimes my favorite T-shirt is the same "this is what I want for myself now and immediately!"
Partly I realize that this is just luck. That among my 33,000 readers there are 100 or sometimes 300 who want one of my things. I am very happy about this every time, and surprised at the same time. But for me it makes sense. What more. That's enough for me. Somewhere in the world, someone wears my T-shirt to the holes and at the same time likes himself in the mirror! :-)

And also - I wrote about this in my last book - each person has his own meaning of life, and when he is lost, it becomes very bad for everyone (and the person himself does not know why he lives in the world, and he feels very bad). This feeling that everything is meaningless is a symptom of severe depression, and it is very difficult to get out of it. Such people are taught to slowly seek the joy of everything in the world, pleasant sensations, impressions, any activity that brings pleasure. They force you to return to elementary routines in small steps. And then suddenly everything was good - if only a person had at least some interest in getting up in the morning and continuing to live. So here all of a sudden any "small joys of life" become priceless: if thanks to them a person woke up in the morning and wanted to get up, then this is already a success! Because everything rests on the desire to live and at least something (anything) to continue. Therefore, if you look at everything from this angle, all my work (and the work of any person) makes a lot of sense! I woke up in the morning and ran to see. in just shorts, how some of my designs dried up, whether it bent from the glue, and whether the paint darkened. Or whether the client responded, accepted my work, and whether it is possible to continue. another person with the same zeal rushes to the refrigerator - to see if the cake is frozen. Someone runs to the unfinished dress, because today the second half of this dress is waiting for him, and the worst of the tasks that you want to do already. Or some part of the process from which he gets especially great pleasure, but which still had to be reached.

For whom it still makes sense - it does not matter.
For someone - has.
Yes, there are millions of pictures in the world, but someone alone wanted a picture of mine. And this is my happiness - it made sense to work. And for the customer, this also makes sense - he wanted to illustrate his text (or product, website, cars) with my picture, and he will get what he dreamed of!

Someone will buy this particular dress and will wear it and look beautiful. Someone will feed their children and go on vacation because they gave him money for his work.

And when I die, I allowed my child to take out everything that I left in the trash, if I don’t want to keep it for myself, and there will be no opportunity to sell it. Or distribute to anyone. Because I understand that it filled my life with meaning, but it does not have to seem meaningful to someone else. And it is enough for me that it makes my life meaningful. And so I get up in the morning, go to work, then in the evening I am glad that I worked successfully, I rejoice at a well-deserved rest, I think about what I have learned. I'm scouring the internet looking for answers on how to make things even better. There are many meanings in my life - children, grandchildren, relatives and friends. But creativity and work are two very important ones.

An ideal job filled with meaning and bringing complete satisfaction is the dream of everyone, which, alas, most often turns out to be illusory. Even your dream job can feel dreary or stressful. In this case, the thought may arise: is this all that you so stubbornly sought? For what? How to find meaning in work and even get joy from it? There are several key principles and actions that should help.

1. Don't take work for granted

There is an old Greek proverb that says, "How do you make a master appreciate his donkey?" Answer: "Deprive him of his donkey!"

The world's population is growing at an alarming rate, and anyone who has a job should be thankful for their employment. Imagine a lot of people would like to have a paid job but can't find it. So...be grateful for your work.

2. Decide on your values

Work can be really meaningful if it is part of a life purpose. And the purpose of life is likely to be consistent with your values. And life values ​​are what helps to find happiness in work.

So how do you clarify your values?

Make a list of 5 things that are most important in your life. Most likely, you are thinking about things like family, friends, spirituality, money, career, work-life balance. Then ask yourself how your work serves those values ​​and write down the answers.

As soon as you realize that your life values ​​​​are in no way contrary to work, you will immediately realize that you are lucky: you have almost got the perfect balance.

3. How to turn dreams into reality

If you have a big dream for your career - maybe you want a bigger promotion or want to work for yourself - look for ways to turn your dream into reality. You may have to work harder than others to get what you want, but it can ultimately empower you to do what you want to do and work happily in the long run.

Make a list of small steps you can take to get closer to your dream, and commit to doing all of these things every day. These steps can be as small as "Find a website dedicated to my dream and read everything on it" or "Subscribe to an email newsletter related to my professional ideal." Do one thing every day that brings you closer to your dream. You will be surprised how small but consistent actions can quickly bring you closer to the realization of a big idea.

4. Understand why you work

If you want to be happy at work, you need to understand your attitude towards it and the motives for this work. There must be some reason forcing you to act without fail, otherwise you will not get out of bed in the morning. Of course, money is the driving force, but there must be other reasons that make you get up in the morning and rush to work.

So what is important to you? Answer the following questions:

1. Are you working out of necessity or striving to achieve something?
2. Do you really want to get out of the house to be among people?
3. Do you want to work for yourself?
4. Do you want to excel in your chosen field?
5. Do you really want to help others?
6. Do you want to be creative?

Look at the questions where you answered yes. Are there elements in your current job that meet these needs and desires? If yes, then everything is fine.

5. How do you rate your work?

Each work has an inner meaning. It doesn't matter what you do. It will not only give you income, but it will also affect other people and even the whole world in which we live.

While working, we will certainly come into contact with other people - this important fact must be realized.

Work becomes more meaningful when it bears fruit in our own lives and the lives of others.

What happens if you stop doing what you are doing? Write it down and admit to yourself that your work is needed by someone else besides you. Realize that you are helping people and the cause you serve.

And then all efforts will find true meaning.

6. What is your goal?

Every job has a purpose. Make a list of the three most important things you're hired for and don't forget to include why you need to do them well.

Set goals to accomplish these tasks more effectively and you will definitely achieve more, plus you will gain additional respect from your colleagues and employer.

By having a clear goal and making it clear how time should be spent, you'll find yourself focusing on what's important.

7. Major or minor?

Wasting time on unimportant tasks is futile and leads to dissatisfaction. Many people work 10-12 hour days and it still doesn't seem like anything is moving. And despair sets in.

And if you eliminate everything that takes a lot of time or is not so important during the working day? Learn to set goals for yourself to complete important tasks rather than being torn apart. Make a to-do list and check yourself to see how things are progressing. It will keep you organized, motivated to get things done, and you'll be surprised how satisfying it is to check off your to-do list. And you will immediately tune in to a major key.

8. What do you want?

It is obvious to everyone that at the top of the list of motives for work will be money. But if this is the only goal, it is unlikely that such an activity will bring much joy. So besides just making money, consider what else you want to work for.

1. Is having a permanent job the most important thing for you?
2. Would a flexible work schedule suit you better?
3. Do you want a promotion or pay raise?
4. Would you like to have the opportunity to learn and develop your skills?
5. If you work from home, is this the right option for you?
6. You do not hide the fact that you are simply earning your pension or funds for an entertainment or sports club?

Look at the number of positive responses. Is your goal to satisfy most of these needs? So it's time to talk to the boss. If you can’t change something in this job, it’s time to look for something else. Apparently this career is not for you.

9. Build the Right Relationships with Colleagues

Good relationships with colleagues are a powerful factor in being happy and successful at work. Not everyone is born with a great character: many people are gloomy or uncomfortable, or they think that everyone treats them badly, etc.

Good relationships are something without which it is impossible to work in a team and improve, all together and individually. Learning good interpersonal skills, in particular, is integral to your job success and satisfaction. If you can learn to reckon with other people, they will respond in kind, and your work will be much more pleasant and fruitful. Here are a few rules to keep in mind:

1. Making people treat you well means always finding something good in themselves, including saying a kind word about them.
2. Do not be lazy to ask how your colleagues are doing, show interest in their problems.
3. Treat people with respect and be grateful for any advice or help from them.
4. Dare to be helpful.
5. Learn to compromise.
6. Try to always be in a good mood, because joy breeds joy.

Smile! Work with pleasure - and you will find meaning in your work. You deserve it!

I often come across people who do not understand why they live. They work hard. The job allows them to earn money for a living. But do they live? No... They don't live, they just survive. And I want to ask: what is all this for? What's the point? What are you working so hard for?

It seems to me that work can only have two meanings. And now we will consider them in detail.

Work as a vocation

Perfect option. Man receives pleasure from your work. Human implemented in their professional activities. Of course, such a person also gets tired sometimes. She may also be in a bad mood. And sometimes she can even complain to her girlfriends about the lack of free time, blockages at work, fatigue, etc. But these complaints are not real. It's just a release of accumulated stress. And if you start to understand, such a person still admits that he is happy with his work that he likes to work and he never dreams of any other professional activity.

In this case, the meaning of human life is in the work itself. Such people can work 15 hours a day with a minimum of days off and feel great. However, you still need to observe the line ... When work brings pleasure and when she only gives unbearable fatigue?

Techniques to help find a vocation are described in the article ""

Work as a source of income

Should work always be a calling? No! A job can simply be a source of income. But! Then this work must meet the following requirements:

- you must have clear work schedule. The most convenient for you. Most often it is 2 * 2. We work a couple of days, we rest a couple of days. This schedule allows you to find more time for your hobby;

- Job shouldn't be too stressful. Otherwise, you simply will not have the strength for anything else;

- about this work no need to think after hours. Nobody should call you. Leaving the workplace, you should simply disconnect from everything related to your work activity.

But the most important thing is you must have your own hobby! A hobby that does not make money, but which is your calling, is the meaning of your life... Instead of a hobby, you can raise children, do housework ... Provided that you really like! Otherwise, it all comes down to the fact that your life is meaningless.

What are you working for?

Let's do a little exercise. How is your typical day? Make a daily routine, roughly counting how many hours you spend on some activity. Make such a list for both the working day and the weekend. For example, in a working day, you spend 1 hour getting ready, 2 hours driving to work, 8 hours working, 1 hour eating dinner, 1 hour sitting in front of the TV, 1 hour communicating with loved ones, etc. Here we enter only what you do every day. And immediately calculate how much time it takes per year ... For working days - multiply by 5, then multiply by 48 (52 weeks a year, 3-4 of them are spent on vacation and holidays).

Then write down those activities that are present in your week that are not included in the previous list. And count how many hours a week you spend on them. For example, a gym - 3 hours a week, a cinema - 2 hours a week, a restaurant - 2 hours a week, a barbecue trip - 10 hours a week. And again calculate how many hours per year it takes.

Do the same for classes that you refer to several times a month.

What happened? What do you spend the most time of the year on?

Probably most of your time will be spent at work. But what follows her? Cleaning? Chat with friends? Shopping? Or your favorite thing?

This exercise will help you see your life from the outside. And perhaps you can understand its absurdity. Perhaps you will understand that in fact there is nothing in your life but work and senseless killing of time. What then is the meaning of such a life? You spend a lot of time on what gives you no pleasure!

If you feel the need to understand this situation, do the exercise "" - this exercise is quite difficult, but effective.

Love yourself! And may your work bring you happiness!

Quite often, in questions, psychologists on the relevant sites are asked for advice in cases where when there is no desire to do their job or continue their education.

Moreover, a person cannot quit work or study and feels squeezed in a vice by the need to continue studying or working and by a persistent unwillingness to do so.

And this is not just a whim or laziness, as such unwillingness is sometimes superficially interpreted. This is precisely the inability to continue this activity, due to the negative mental and even somatic state of a person.

In this case, it is safe to say that a person is experiencing a syndrome of professional or emotional burnout.

I was approached by a girl who graduated with honors from her studies abroad, returned to her homeland and wished, in her words, "to benefit her country."

She was accepted into one of the largest national companies, where her duties were simply to print some orders that were put on the table, and she considered herself doing a useless job. Six months later, she fell ill, apathy appeared, she didn’t have the strength to go to work, she didn’t want to communicate with friends, she couldn’t leave an uninteresting job - the company is prestigious, the salary is good, neither relatives nor friends would simply understand her. At first she began to catch cold often, and then apathy came, and the girl turned to me. On the face there were all signs of professional burnout, and in such a short time.

There are many methods of prevention of professional burnout syndrome in the world. This is due to the difference in cultures, leadership styles and different scientific and methodological approaches to solving this problem.

In this article, we will not be able to reflect the whole variety of methods for preventing professional burnout. here we touch on the meaning.

Viktor Frankl, a recognized authority in the field of psychology, could observe the manifestations of emotional burnout in vivid examples of his environment while in a German concentration camp. Under these exceptional conditions, he understood how burnout kills people and was able to develop a system to help prisoners overcome this affliction.

V. Frankl was able to help many prisoners by doing psychological work with them and saving them from death. Helping others, he saved himself by finding meanings that supported the lives of prisoners, in this he himself found his own meaning, which gave him strength to overcome all those negative factors that he had to go through.

In our opinion, an important takeaway from this story and that of my client is that the most significant factor contributing to professional burnout is a lack of motivation or, as Frankl said, a lack of meaning. Frankl based his logotherapy on Nietzsche's saying:

If you know why, you can bear any how.

The fact that the client did not see the point in her work had a depressing effect on her. She was upset that her knowledge was being lost. And therefore, the author considers motivation or understanding the meaning of one's work to be the first and most important method of preventing and correcting emotional burnout.

Dan Ariely conducted a series of social experiments in which he gave meaning to any one work or deprived it of its own meaning. Some had a point in assembling children's transformers, while others were engaged in the same business senselessly.

The only difference was that some transformers were immediately disassembled and put back into boxes in front of the assemblers, while others were taken to another room assembled. Both of them were paid the same money for this work. As a result of this experiment, it was found that those who had meaning were generally more positive about their work.

Therefore, here we can conclude that in conditions of increased and severe psychological and physical stress, giving meaning to work increases efficiency and slows down the development of fatigue.

This method has been used at all times by various politicians to influence the masses, when people could be required to make significant physical and psychological efforts. Let us recall the famous "Forward to communism", "Everything for victory!", "The next generation of Soviet people will live under communism!".

Or you can give the example of Napoleon, who, at the beginning of his career, got a tired and exhausted army. He told his soldiers: “The quartermasters have robbed you, and you have almost no weapons. But I will lead you to places where we can find food and clothes and we can grab a lot of weapons. What happened next, everyone knows. Napoleon, like no one else, could motivate people, which, of course, had a huge impact on his future fate.

How is this issue approached in modern organizations?

In the modern world, it has become a mandatory rule for all organizations to have established and prescribed documents such as the mission, vision and goals of the company. Which, no matter how big the organization, must be conveyed to every employee, from the top manager to the cleaning department employees.

Successful missions of the company inspire, inspire and thus create a special atmosphere of the attitude of the employees of this company to their work and contribute to higher productivity of the teams.