I Want A Meaningful Job, But How Do I Get One?

Achieving a dream goal

Here at Wengood, we’ve often discussed the Covid health crisis, particularly in terms of its psychological impact. We’ve especially seen that there was an awareness and a desire to work less after the pandemic. However, even if many people want to reduce their working hours, this isn’t necessarily possible in practice. We live in a capitalist society where we need to be useful and productive in order to generate profit.

We may not like working, but we often have no choice! Yes, it’s a privilege to be able to go without work (especially because you have capital) or to do a job that’s exciting and meaningful to you. Of course, the first option appears to be more unattainable (unless you win the lottery or marry a rich CEO 😅)... But what can you do to get a meaningful job?

How to get a meaningful job?

At primary school, secondary school, and university, one question keeps coming up: what do you want to do for a living? Some people answer very spontaneously and stick to the profession they’d given as a child. Others are still looking for an answer 🤔.

If you fall in the second group, you need to ask yourself the right questions by taking stock of your situation in order to define your values clearly. In general, what is meaningful to me in life? What’s important for me? Because to do a meaningful job, it needs to be in line with our values. We, therefore, need to ask ourselves profound questions about who we are before we even consider looking for a job.

>>> Read; So what if I hate working?

Reflecting on your usefulness to society

Once we’ve done this introspection in order to, in a way, find our ikigai, our reason for living, we need to zoom out to focus on another dimension. Knowing yourself is crucial when looking for meaning in your professional life, but you also need to ask yourself about your use in society: what might be useful for others?

Many people spontaneously think of jobs in care, for example, but in reality, there’s no right answer. There are many areas that can help others, including art and entertainment. Indeed, where would we be if we had no way to escape through the artistic creations of others?

Taking stock of your skills

Nevertheless, you can’t change jobs at the click of a finger. Of course, wanting a meaningful job can be an argument during a job interview. But before you get to that point, there are other steps to take first. We need to see if our skills match the sector of work we’re interested in. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine someone who wants to become a doctor without having studied medicine at all 👩‍⚕️... This is a bit of a caricature, I’ll admit, but the point is that you can’t just jump into something that’s too distant from what you know. You can start a major career change, but you need to have all the subtleties in mind and do a skills assessment to make sure you don’t screw it up.

🙇‍♀️ As well as avoiding coming a cropper, skills, and values can also be combined. For example, someone with a degree and experience in marketing (skills) could work for an organization that matters to them (values).

Finding meaning for yourself

This could have happened to me, but I decided to take another aspect into consideration: my passions. They’re overflowing, take up a lot of space and in my eyes, they’re what give meaning to my life. So, beyond the values/usefulness aspect, we also need to think about what makes us happy. Indeed, we have the right to give importance to something that appears secondary to others.

Even if, in this case, there’s a big gap caused by the difference in generation, from one individual to another, we won’t have the same definition of what’s meaningful. What matters most therefore is to be in tune with yourself to avoid getting stuck in a brown-out or, worse, a burn-out. What makes sense, in the end, is to be fulfilled!

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