Does your work have purpose? YES, but maybe you are not seeing it

We have said in previous blogs that we are complex beings, which makes it difficult to have a single goal that is sufficient to feel fulfilled. Our complexity demands that our intention aims at more than one goal, and that each of them leads us — as if it were a direction with several routes — towards a happy life.

To classify these objectives that lead us to our purpose — or “P objectives”, as we will call them — we will make the distinction by the area of life in which they are put into practice, which are those spaces and/or activities in which we invest our time and energy. It could be said that it is the field where the game of life is played. They are the instances in which we put into practice our most relevant desires or aspirations.

The possibilities of these areas are varied, but the most common are usually: family, spiritual life, connection with nature, recreation, community life and work.

Work is probably the area of life in which most adults agree the most. At the same time, it is the one to which we normally dedicate the most time and energy, since it is the main activity that allows us to pay our living expenses. It can be a professional job, a trade, in the arts, sciences, sports, whatever it may be, the important thing, for the purpose of the purpose, is that we are referring to our main activity, not to a hobby or accessory activity.

The needs we seek to satisfy through work -and which are important for our well-being at work- range from the most basic ones, such as the security of having a stable income or a place where our physical integrity is not at risk, to the most spiritual ones, such as generating a positive impact with our work.

In a dream world, our jobs should have a reach that encompasses a large number of people and serve to solve the great problems of humanity. But that is not necessarily the case. We tend to think that this level of impact is the only one that counts, but the truth is that jobs with these characteristics are very rare and it is not necessary to aspire to reach such a magnitude to achieve it.

Every job, profession or trade, by the mere fact of existing as such, is at the service of others, and for that reason alone generates a positive impact on others. This is so, and when we do not see it, it is because we have not made the effort to do so consciously. Purpose can be found in the great causes of humanity as well as in the most common, everyday jobs, for there is an implicit goodness in service to others.

Regardless of the type of work involved, studies show that those people who perceive their jobs as a form of constant giving to others see them as a much more meaningful part of their lives than those who see them as merely a transactional activity [1]. Neuroscientist Paul Zak makes the distinction between “transactional” and “transcendent” work [2] to address this point.

Transactional work refers to everyday chores, those in which goods and services are exchanged for a price, thus satisfying the needs of both the giver and the taker. On the contrary, transcendent work refers to the qualitative feature of service. It is the virtue that allows us to achieve the realization of our capacities and, at the same time, to benefit others. Therefore, any work in which we can be of service to others has the potential to be transcendent.

Although all work generates a positive impact, we can distinguish two types of impact, direct and indirect, which are interesting to explore in more detail:

Direct impact

The impact is direct when the benefits that we generate in other people or the planet are appreciable or apparent without major conscious effort. Direct impact is simple to perceive and can be classified as follows:

Impact by action:

This type of impact is found in those people who have a passion for some activity of such magnitude, that they could not live their path of purpose if not by dedicating themselves to it. We will see it in detail later, but in short, it is the chef who cannot imagine his life without cooking, the musician who cannot stop composing, the tennis player who spends the whole day on the court or the astronomer who never stops looking at the sky. Each of these people passionate about an activity can walk their path of purpose and generate a positive impact, as long as they share their activity with others. Who only cooks or plays and does not share it with anyone, cannot transcend. In sports it happens when representing your team, neighborhood or country in a competition.

Impact by creation:

There is also a profile of people who enjoy when they create new things. It can be by innovating, finding a solution to a problem or undertaking with an idea. Curious, risk-taking and flexible-minded people who generate a positive impact, for example, by finding new solutions to existing problems, or by generating employment through their company.

Impact through contact:

In these cases, the activity or work performed is directly linked, in time and form, with the benefit generated, either in people or in the environment. There is direct contact with the beneficiary, be it a person or nature.

A cardiologist who is dedicated to saving lives in a hospital is clear about the contribution of his work. His actions are directly linked to the benefited subject, the patient, which makes the relationship of his work with the positive impact evident. The same thing happens to a psychologist in his office, or to a teacher in the classroom with his students. It also happens to a veterinarian when caring for animals, or to a park ranger with the nature he protects.

What is relevant is not the profession itself, but the possibility of being in direct contact with those who benefit from it. The leader of a group or a company can also have a direct impact on the people who work with him. It may be by training them, empowering them, inspiring them, or providing new opportunities for growth. Being a leader per se is an opportunity to positively impact the lives of others.

Indirect impact

In indirect impact, there is a temporal or physical distance between the activity and the contribution it generates for other people or the planet. This characteristic makes the impact more difficult to perceive and challenges us to look beyond the obvious; to be aware of the cause or value underlying our actions.

This type of impact can be as or more beneficial to people than direct impact; however, because its connection to the benefit generated is not obvious, it challenges us to constantly connect what we do with the cause or value that motivates us to do it. In fact, the way we identify an action, task or work in our mind can be decisive in terms of the meaning and significance it generates.

In this sense, the levels of identification of an action can be low or high. Low levels imply concrete, immediate and specific meanings. They are simple, usually automatic, habitual and executable without the need for consciousness. For example, if I serve myself a plate of meat and potatoes for lunch, when asked what I am doing, I will answer that I am eating meat and potatoes.

In contrast, higher levels of identification consider more abstract concepts that are removed from the action itself and, therefore, allow us to evaluate our actions within a context or longer periods of time. Being a more complex exercise requires, in turn, a higher level of awareness that allows us to define ourselves in relation to lower and more concrete objectives.

In the example above, if we take it to a higher level of identification, it would no longer be about eating the plate of food in front of me. In addition to that, I also evaluate other things, such as whether it is healthy, whether it is enough to keep me from getting hungry until dinner, whether or not I would like to be accompanied at that time, and so on.

The same thing happens in the mythical story of the cathedral. A pedestrian approaches a construction site and asks two bricklayers — each one separately — the same question: what does their work consist of?

The first one looks at him with a resigned face, and answers apathetically: “I’m putting one brick on top of the other”.

The second, with glee, passion and pride, replies: “I am building the biggest and most beautiful cathedral in the world. I will probably never see it finished, but it fills me with pride to know that my grandchildren will come to pray here every Sunday”.

This story shows how, through the conscious process of identifying the action, the same activity can have different meanings for those who perform it. The first bricklayer feels that he has a job, and the second that he has a cause, that he is advancing on his path of purpose. Both levels of identification are equally correct, but their impact on the perception of the significance of what we do is radically opposite.

Those who use a low level of identification of their actions also experience low levels of satisfaction. On the contrary, those who achieve a high level of awareness feel that their work allows them to transcend, because they are able to associate it with their values and the satisfaction of their most spiritual needs.

When the impact of what we do is indirect, what we have to appeal to is the values we seek to achieve with our service. Building trust, caring for the environment, improving the quality of education, advancing transparency, promoting justice and encouraging a diverse and inclusive community are examples of some of the values that citizens want to promote and that companies know how to address. With this kind of impact in mind, thousands of companies are reviewing their business strategies, looking for ways to state their corporate purpose and attract talent that believes the same as they do.

These areas that you are looking at, by themselves, do not ensure us to live a purposeful life, that is, the fact of having a family, a job or contact with nature, does not guarantee our happiness, but they do allow us to organize ourselves for it. The exercise we should do is to discover which of these areas are really important for our happiness and, based on that, set those “P goals” that will allow us to live them fully — considering that they can be more than one — and that will evolve along with us.

[1] Grant. A (April 2013). “In the Company of Givers and Takers.” Harvard Busssines Review 91(4):90–7, p. 142.

[2] Zak, P. (2017). Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies. Amacom.

For more on this topic, get my book “WTF is purpose” on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wtf+is+purpose&__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=2USCWTF1VQ17U&sprefix=wtf+is+purpos%2Caps%2C183&ref=nb_sb_noss_2