Are You Fully Charged? Read online

  Through both research and personal experience, I have discovered that creating meaning is central not just to my existence but to that of every organization in society today. Businesses, schools, governments, families, and faith-based groups are being challenged more than ever to show how they make a meaningful contribution to society. The essential thing people want in a job today is work that will allow them to create meaning for others. My research suggests that the odds of being completely engaged in your job increase by more than 250 percent if you spend a lot of time doing meaningful work throughout the day.

  To discover what leads to better work and lives, Harvard Business School’s Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer sorted through 12,000 diary entries and 64,000 specific workday events collected from 238 workers across seven different companies. Their conclusion from this research was: “Of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.” This research also showed that creating meaning is an evolutionary process that grows by the day, as opposed to a grand purpose that suddenly falls in your lap.

  Small wins generate meaningful progress. You might create a small positive charge for one of your customers today or work on a new product that will benefit people in the future. Over the weekend, maybe you’ll have a long conversation with a loved one that makes a difference. It is these little moments, not grand actions, that create substance and meaning.

  Abandon the Pursuit of Happiness

  The pursuit of meaning — not happiness — is what makes life worthwhile. Despite Thomas Jefferson including it in the Declaration of Independence, the “pursuit of happiness” is a shortsighted aim. Putting your own well-being before well-doing pulls you in the wrong direction.

  People who spend life seeking happiness are unlikely to find it. Much like chasing fame or wealth, seeking happiness alone is misguided and can lead to poor decisions.

  Clearly, happiness is a positive condition. Being around people who have higher levels of well-being is more enjoyable than being around people who don’t. It is the constant pursuit of your own happiness that leads you astray. Pursuing happiness for loved ones or for your community is a worthwhile goal. But trying to create happiness for yourself can have the opposite effect, according to recent studies.

  Scientists are still uncovering the reasons why the pursuit of happiness backfires. Part of the explanation lies in its self-focused nature. Research suggests that the more value you place on your own happiness, the more likely you are to feel lonely on a daily basis. When participants in experiments were deliberately induced to value happiness more by reading a bogus article extolling the benefits of happiness, they reported feeling lonely. And samples of their saliva indicated corresponding decreases in progesterone levels — a hormonal response associated with loneliness. Seeking your own happiness and nothing else results in feelings of futility. But if you spend as much time creating meaningful interactions as you do pursuing happiness, you will be better off in both areas.

  Swim in the Deep End of Life

  Happiness and meaningfulness are two distinct human conditions. While there is some overlap, the differences have clear implications for how people spend their time. Those who pursue happiness, for example, are what psychologists calls “takers.” As Roy Baumeister and his team noted after studying this topic extensively, “Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life.” In contrast, co-author Kathleen Vohs explained, “People leading meaningful lives get a lot of joy from giving to others.”

  Baumeister points out that it is not the pursuit of happiness but the pursuit of meaning that sets humans apart from animals. In some cases, creating meaning involves putting another person’s needs before your own, which could lead to short-term decreases in your happiness. However, when you do, you make a contribution that improves the environment around you.

  Happiness and meaningfulness also appear to have distinct influences on physiological health. When participants in a study led by the University of North Carolina’s Barbara Fredrickson were happy but lacked meaning in their lives (defined as pursuing a purpose bigger than self), they exhibited a stress-related gene pattern that is known to activate an inflammatory response. They had the same gene expression pattern as people dealing with constant adversity have. Over time, this pattern leads to chronic inflammation, which is related to a host of illnesses, like heart disease and cancer. Fredrickson noted, “Empty positive emotions . . . are about as good for you as adversity.”

  Unfortunately, 75 percent of participants in Fredrickson’s study fell into this category; their happiness levels outpaced their levels of meaningfulness. In contrast, participants who had meaning in their lives, whether or not they characterized themselves as happy, showed a deactivation in this stress-related gene pattern. In other words, their bodies did not act as if they were under constant duress and threat.

  Participating in meaningful activities elevates your thinking above yourself and your own momentary needs. Every minute you can set aside your own happiness for the sake of others will eventually lead to stronger families, organizations, and communities. In the end, the pursuit of happiness and “success” will pass. What endures is creating meaning in your own life and in the lives of others.

  Pursue Life, Liberty, and Meaningfulness

  Historically, finding meaning has been portrayed as a personal journey — something you discover through extensive searching or call on in times of need. Finding a higher purpose in life is considered the ultimate existential and philosophical goal. The study of meaningfulness has been influenced by Viktor Frankl’s landmark 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning, which chronicled his experience in a Nazi concentration camp. The book describes how finding something meaningful in the bleakest of human conditions allowed Frankl and others to survive. Surely a conclusion this substantial could come only from enduring such harrowing conditions, right?

  As it turns out, Frankl’s discoveries about meaning started years before he was forced into a concentration camp, when he was a medical student trying to prevent suicide in teenagers struggling with depression. Frankl developed a treatment that he called “logotherapy.” The basic principle of this approach is to help people find practical goals and steps that create “specific and individual meaning.” In Frankl’s words, “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’” It was this work that he used as he helped fellow prisoners in concentration camps.

  Frankl’s initial theory about how young people find meaning is now being tested through carefully designed experiments. A 2014 study followed a group of teenagers for a full year to see how their brains reacted to self-fulfilling (hedonic) acts versus acts that created meaning (eudaimonic) using fMRI scans and questionnaires. While the participants were in the fMRI scanner, researchers posed scenarios to them about keeping money for themselves versus donating it to their families. The researchers also followed up at the end of the year to review any changes from the teens’ baseline levels of depressive symptoms.

  The results revealed that teenagers who had the greatest brain response to meaningful actions had the greatest declines in depressive symptoms over time. In contrast, teens who made more self-fulfilling decisions were more likely to have an increase in risk of depression. Meaningful activity essentially protects the brain from dark thoughts. As Frankl observed in the early years of his career, people’s need for meaningful work begins when they are young.

  Get a Charge From Within

  Meaningful work is driven by intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. Extrinsic motivation is a nice way of describing when you do things primarily to receive a reward. You might take a new job because of the higher pay and better benefits package. Then you work 60-hour weeks to reach an arbitrary goal that someone else has set. After all, it will look good on your résumé a few years from now when someone is judging you — based on their own motiv
ations.

  Intrinsic motivation — or deep internal motivation — is much richer. For example, consider a teacher who is inspired by the growth of a student or a doctor who is driven by improving health. Intrinsic motivation stems from the meaningfulness of the work you do. You are driven by what you yearn to do even if there is no reward or compensation.

  Emerging research suggests that it is better to focus solely on intrinsic motivation, because deriving any motive whatsoever from external incentives could decrease performance. Yale’s Amy Wrzesniewski and her team followed 11,320 West Point military cadets and assessed their motives for attending the academy over a 14-year period. The researchers made a startling discovery: Cadets who entered West Point because of internal motivators were more likely to graduate, become commissioned officers, receive promotions, and stay in the military compared with those who entered due to external motives. Those cadets who entered with both strong internal (e.g., a desire to lead others) and external (e.g., to get a better job and make more money) motives, however, did not exhibit that same likelihood of success.

  Contrary to what these researchers initially suspected, two strong motivators led to poorer outcomes across all of these measures when compared with internal motivation alone. The results caused the researchers to question whether the Army should put more emphasis on leading others and serving your country instead of money for college or career training. They also questioned this general logic for other professions, like the practice of motivating teachers with bonuses for higher test scores.

  “Helping people focus on the meaning and impact of their work, rather than on, say, the financial returns it will bring, may be the best way to improve not only the quality of their work but also — counterintuitive though it may seem — their financial success,” observed Wrzesniewski and her co-author Barry Schwartz. This is especially important because it is easy to fall into the trap of allowing external incentives, such as monetary rewards at work, to detract from your ability to focus on meaningful efforts to serve others.

  One challenge is that cultivating and developing intrinsic motivation often requires conscious effort. To study this, researchers randomly assigned groups of creative writers to take a survey that either subtly reminded them of intrinsic or extrinsic motivations for writing. If the writers thought about intrinsic reasons beforehand, their subsequent work was graded as far more creative. In contrast, when writers spent even five minutes thinking about the external motivators for their work, it had the opposite effect.

  Think about the implications for your work. When you are bombarded with conventional carrot-and-stick motivators, even if they help at first, they are not sustainable. Instead, look for small ways to keep your best internal motivators top of mind throughout the day.

  Just having photos of my kids on my smartphone lock screen and desk is a great reminder and motivator for me. A friend of mine in publishing is driven by a weekly report that shows how many people are reading the books he has worked on. James Allen, a train station attendant in London, motivates himself by trying to get even the most hardened commuters to smile. The things that charge you from within are likely very different from what works best for the people around you. Intrinsic motivations are not universal; they are individualized.

  Try to find activities outside of work that appeal to your intrinsic motivation. One study found that employees who were encouraged to engage in creative activities unrelated to work, such as creative writing or other artistic endeavors, subsequently performed better on the job. Researchers at the University of Exeter found that simply being able to decorate your workspace with things like plants, art, or pictures of loved ones could increase productivity by up to 32 percent. This is why companies like Google encourage employees to make their workplace feel like home, even if it looks like a mess to others.

  Forge Meaning in the Moment

  Meaning does not happen to you — you create it. One of the most important elements of building a great career and life is attaching what you do each day to a broader mission. Until you understand how your efforts contribute to the world, you are simply going through the motions each day.

  Creating meaning in your work does not require a grand plan about how you personally will alter the fate of the world. It can be much more practical — and relevant — to the people you care about most. Start by asking why your current job or role even exists. In most cases, jobs are created because they help another person, make a process more efficient, or produce something people need.

  If you stock shelves at a grocery store, you are saving people time and making it easier for them to have nourishing meals at home with their family. Almost anyone who works in customer service or a call center has an opportunity to comfort someone, solve a problem, and improve another person’s day. If you develop apps or software for a living, your products provide great utility, save time, entertain, or keep people connected. When you think about it, it’s not that difficult to find meaningful aspects of almost any job.

  Once you have identified how your efforts create a better life for others, consider what you could do to deliver a better product to the people you serve. Just think of all the different interactions you have had as a customer. When a customer service rep treats you and your request poorly, it can derail the rest of your day. On the other hand, if someone resolves your problem in a warm and understanding manner, the response gives you a positive charge and can turn a bad experience into a good one.

  This is the type of daily impact you can have in your interactions with your friends, family, colleagues, and customers. But it takes effort to determine exactly how your interactions charge the environment around you every day. Start by attaching meaning to small interchanges. Over time, you will be able to connect the dots between your efforts and a larger purpose.

  Most people I talk to have the opportunity to engage in meaningful pursuits on their own time. However, when I ask people about the meaningfulness of their work each day, they struggle with the question. To me, this is deeply concerning, given the fact that most people spend the majority of their waking hours dedicated to being full-time workers, students, parents, or volunteers.

  Make Work a Purpose, Not Just a Place

  When Amy Wrzesniewski studied workers on the cleaning staff in a hospital system, she was amazed by how differently people viewed the same job. Some workers saw their job as a paycheck — a way to put food on the table and cover expenses. Others, meanwhile, considered their work to be a true calling.

  When Wrzesniewski and her colleagues dug deeper, they found that these differences were not the result of what shift someone worked, the unit they worked on, or how long they had been on the job. Instead, the difference lay in whether or not a worker had strayed from their formal job description and become involved in meaningful interactions and relationships with patients and visitors. Those who had done this found greater meaning in their work. As one of the workers explained to Wrzesniewski, “I do everything I can to promote the healing of patients. Part of that is about creating clean and sterile spaces in which they can recover, but it also extends to anything else I can possibly do to facilitate healing.” When these workers identified with being a part of the overall care team, it completely transformed their work and identity.

  The work you do each day is how you make a difference in the world. You probably spend the majority of your time doing something that is considered a job, occupation, or calling. It is essential to make this time count. If you can find the right work, you can create meaning every day, instead of trying to squeeze the most important things in around the edges.

  Work should be more than a necessary means to an end. Yet one dictionary lists “work” as synonymous with “drudgery” and “servitude.” When I ask people about their career expectations, one of the most frequent replies I hear is, “You don’t live to work; you work to live.” The assumption built into this belief is that people work primarily for a paycheck in a job devoid of meaning.
r />   While defining work as little more than a monetary transaction may have rung true a century ago, it is at best an incomplete description of what employees are looking for today. This type of transactional relationship is also directly at odds with what organizations require from employees in a modern economy. The last thing businesses need is employees who show up to punch a time clock and who give only a fraction of their energy and effort to the organization’s mission.

  The fundamental relationship between an employee and an organization is finally starting to change. When I was young, most adults I observed in the workplace were working hard primarily for the paycheck, trying to move as quickly as possible to the next step on a ladder, or working to the point of exhaustion so they could retire early. These efforts were usually rooted in good intentions or a strong work ethic. However, this dynamic is neither sustainable for individuals nor optimal for productivity.

  Work for More Than a Living

  The concept of bringing people together in groups, tribes, or organizations is based on the fundamental premise that human beings can do more collectively than they can in isolation. Hundreds of years ago, people banded together for the sake of sharing food and shelter and keeping their family safe. The basic assumption was that the association gained by joining a group would benefit individuals and their loved ones. As a species, humans are better off together than they are apart. Simple enough.

  This is why I was taken aback by research Gallup conducted on this topic. When workers across the United States were asked whether their lives were better off because of the organization they worked for, a mere 12 percent claimed that their lives were significantly better. The vast majority of employees felt their company was a detriment to their overall health and well-being.