Having a strong “why” or “purpose” is probably the hardest step in getting our lives into alignment with what we really want and value. One natural next question from there is making decisions about “what” you do in life, hopefully, aligned with your purpose and values. The Ikigai concept allows us to map out our careers right next to our passions and the causes we care about - with the decision of career being the most important due to its implication on our livelihood.
While not everyone centers their purpose around work, work is cited by about three-quarters of people as important to their personal purpose. I was surprised to hear that, and am looking forward to discussing how we might build that purpose into our careers.
This post is part of a multi-part series around life design discussing how to live intentionally, and a life aligned with what you really want. This topic discusses creating a sense of purpose at work.
These are my parents!
I admire them because their purpose was clear from the start - to provide the best life they could for
my brothers and I. My father refused promotions to make sure he was able to work from home and spend more time with us. My mother worked less than she could have to get involved with our education in the parent-teacher association and making sure we had the best education possible. My parents’ purpose was clear and I’d say they did an outstanding job achieving it (sort of a self-brag?).
Then there’s my story. I started out with purpose in my mission-driven work in education, but realized that (1) my lifestyle was not consistent with my values, and (2) working for a mission-driven organization was not as important as the type of work I do personally. And while I chose a more traditional corporate-facing job for now, at least I have the resources and flexibility to steer my work in the right direction.
In both my parents' and my situations, we had to make trade-offs with our time, careers, money, pleasure, etc. which were not easy.
If we bring back the Ikigai framework referenced in the purpose blog post (pictured below), a fulfilled life will include a combination of pursuits of our career, our passions, and our mission (not to mention other parts of your life). Given that we spend on average 90,000 HOURS (!!!!) working, decisions around careers will cascade to the rest of our lives.
To dig in further than this, the book Design Your Life asks some important questions to clarify how work fits into your life:
“Why work?
What’s work for?
What does work mean?
How does it relate to you, others and society?
What defines worthwhile work?
What does money have to do with it?
What do experience, growth and fulfillment have to do with it?”
(I would add) What do workplace relationships mean for you?
Having a coherent philosophy on work will help you make decisions in all areas of your life, even if career may not be the most important piece of your life.
I see work as central to my purpose, my mission and my life, hence my decision not to have children in my prime. I know that if I had children, I would give them every ounce of my energy and would have a hard time balancing with my ambitions at work. Can you not see that ambition in the picture below?! (we get a bit excited for summer school training new teachers)
A note about parents, purpose, and work
My assumption in reading literature on purpose would be that parents have so much responsibility when it comes to their children, that they would be drained of energy and capacity to care a lot beyond their own family.
What surprised me, though, was that according to McKinsey, parents “were more than twice as likely to say that they relied on work for purpose…Given the trade-offs that parents are making between work and home, parents are keen to make work time as meaningful as possible. And…having a child actually made and helped crystallize their purpose and the impact on the world that they want to have and why it matters.”
Aligning Work to Purpose
No matter where you get your purpose, we all want work to feel meaningful. Let’s discuss some ways to align work to your sense of purpose.
There are a few dimensions of alignment:
Organizational alignment - I am working for a company that has the right mission, and therefore anything I do to help the organization is advancing the mission.
Role alignment - the job I do is consistent with my mission, and therefore I am doing the right work, regardless of the organization.
Relationships alignment - I have fulfilling relationships and am helping my coworkers, manager and/or direct reports, therefore fulfilling my mission regardless of my role or organization.
Growth alignment - I am learning and growing in ways that make me feel self-actualized, and therefore, highly aligned with my purpose.
I would imagine to a certain extent, we would want a little bit of each, but we likely prioritize different aspects of work. Take the time to think about what matters most for you when you think about alignment, and for the aspect that is most important to you, to what extent are you aligned?
What if I'm not aligned at all?
Most of us are probably out of alignment with what we really want. Assuming that, what options do we have to get ourselves aligned?
No change in role or organization; only adjust your mindset - reframe your work as aligned as a mental exercise
Stay in the same role, but add/change what work you do so more of it is aligned with your purpose
Change your role in the same organization
Change organizations
It’s up to you to decide how much of a problem misalignment is, and what you expect in terms of your alignment. Be patient, knowing that some of these changes make time, and it could do more harm than good to make a sudden change that was less thought out.
Option 1: Just do some mental reframing.
Often our misalignment issue is just how we frame work in our heads. Most people have somewhat of a hard time drawing a through-line between the work they do and how it ultimately impacts the end “consumer” of your organization’s product, whether they are students or customers.
Let’s say I do work to improve the HR platform for a school system. Ultimately, any work I do to improve the HR system will reduce the amount of time spent on HR-related tasks, which means more time for employees to do their actual work (not to mention reduce their frustrations), like teachers having more time to plan their lessons.
Your job exists for a reason - the organization needs that job done. Whether it’s a regulatory requirement, repetitive work or perhaps unpleasant work, it is clear the organization needs you to do that job or they wouldn't pay for it. The question for you is - do you understand why that job is important and the connection of the job to the organization’s mission?
If you are not clear, think about writing a mission for yourself at work, in a form similar to:
Sample format: “I help [specific employees, departments, customers, etc.] to [goal] by [my work].”
Example for the above HR IT systems: “I reduce school professionals’ administrative work so they can focus on kids, by improving the HR systems.”
My real-world example - below is a picture of a School Leader (Principal) and teacher coaches - as a coach, "I enable the growth of teachers so they can provide an excellent education to children, by giving feedback, sharing best practices and resources, and helping them reflect on their practice."
Hopefully, this helps you clarify the why of your job role, and whether the job contains enough purpose for you. If you realize the role is not enough, what would you want to change about your work?
Option 2: Stay in the same role, just modify the work.
Many of us have the option, whether we realize it or not, to modify the work we do. That can mean doing more work, or perhaps deprioritizing something to fit in something else. Proactivity is key here - being clear about what you want, and using the agency you have to go for it.
Some options you might have here are:
Asking for more or different work from your supervisor
Creating a proposal for something at work
Offering to support a colleague or your supervisor on something that interests you
Asking to be in conversations about a topic or project you are interested in
Just make sure that when you make a request to your supervisor, you are clear about what you want and tactful about how you ask.
Option 3: Change roles.
Changing roles within the same organization is actually a great option if it’s the right choice for you, because you already know the organization and have built relationships and goodwill there.
Just make sure that you are really clear about what you really want with the next role. Often times I hear people in my life just trying to get away from their current role, so they will do anything to switch. Unfortunately, that will only get them back into the same situation.
Option 4: Change organizations (perhaps in a different industry).
For some people (myself included), the organization matters a lot.
Only you will know what is right for you. Having worked in financial services, I realized that no matter what, my work was not going to have a material impact on the causes I cared about, nor was I going to be able to change to a role that I would have wanted. So I changed organizations (and industries).
Recognize what the source of your discontent with the organization is - is it the industry as a whole? Is it this particular company, that they have the wrong mission, or are not fulfilling its promises? Or is it something more cultural? Know this, so that when you are looking for other opportunities outside the organization, you are clear what you are looking for, versus only knowing what you don’t want.
When considering what to do with your career as it relates to alignment, be expansive and creative with all the different options you have, and go through a careful process of choosing (read my post on “big decisions” here)
Being "Real" with the Impact you are Making
Reading Winner Take All had a profound impact on my thinking as it relates to purpose in work. The book discusses how those that make tons of money trick themselves into thinking they are making a big positive impact - because they donated $10K to this charity, or they volunteered once at a homeless shelter, or because they met their diversity targets one year.
Those of us that end up in high-paying corporate jobs do some mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that we’re doing something good for the world. Let’s be real - selling more sodas is not “impact”. Going back to my purpose post - a simple way to think about “positive impact” is reducing suffering, and there's plenty of it in the world.
If you truly do care about impact, something to think about is related to the "scale" of your efforts. Cathy Clark at Duke University in her “Impact Measurement and Management” online class - “impact should be proportionate to the resources afforded to the organization” - which personally means, give a reasonably proportionate amount of money and/or the time that you can spare. And thankfully, research shows you’ll be happier in return!
There’s no clear line between what constitutes the “right” impact, and “enough” impact, and for the most part, no one is really holding you to account, except yourself perhaps. Just don’t fool yourself that you’re some good Samaritan. And also…it’s totally okay to admit like I am, that you’re not really making the impact you said when you defined your purpose.
If you really care about living up to your purpose, hold yourself to a higher standard. The impact police are in your head and heart - listen to them 🙂.
Concluding Thoughts
10 years into my career (that's young teacher me at Teach for America's Summer Institute!), I must say that the decisions I made back when I graduated college still affect
me today. How I relate to my career is completely different now than back then - and I've seen that purpose can't supersede my personal life. This reflection was only made possible by actually writing down what I think, from my beliefs, values, purpose, identity, skills, etc. - to string the pieces together in a bigger picture of what I want from my life, and where my career fits.
I'm just now unwinding the assumptions I've made and with a new blank-ish canvas I'm starting to paint something different for myself. If you feel the same way, please don't hesitate to reach out.
For Learning and With Love,
Chris
Sources:
Book: Winner Take All, by Anand Giridharadas
Book: Design Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
Course: Impact Measurement and Management for the SDGs, by Cathy Clark
Podcast: McKinsey Episode - The Search for Purpose at Work
Article: Psychology Today, Finding Happiness at Work
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