All jobs are important in their own way; otherwise, they wouldn’t exist. However, every person will have their own ideas about what kind of work is meaningful to them personally. It might be that the job you’re currently working in doesn’t feel that meaningful to you, even if it would do to someone else.
Having a meaningful career is important as it will ensure you work hard, put a lot of effort in, and enjoy what you’re doing. In this way, you’ll be happier and more successful. So what can you do if you want to find more meaningful work? Read on to find out.
Work Out What Is Meaningful To You
This might seem like an obvious point, but it’s still an important one – it’s what you need to do before you can make any other changes or move forward. That is: you need to work out what is meaningful to you.
As we said above, different things will hold meaning for different people. For some, creating beautiful art is meaningful. For others, helping others in a practical sense, like in medicine, is what feels meaningful. Or it could be teaching that offers the most meaning. Perhaps a job in research is what would mean something to you.
If you can work out what would be meaningful, you can determine what kind of career you want to pursue.
Think Laterally
You don’t have to start from scratch entirely to have a new career that offers your life more meaning. You might find that you can take your current skills and qualifications and use them to find a career different enough from your current role to be more meaningful but similar enough to mean you can start sooner.
For example, if you are a teacher, you might decide that teaching special needs children would be more meaningful – the same skills apply, and you can specialize in this area. Or if you are a scientist, you might find that you want to work more face-to-face with people, and becoming a pharmacist locum could tick those boxes.
If you think about your current career and then expand that thinking, you should be able to find a route that helps you find more meaning.
Volunteer
Changing careers to do something new is a scary prospect for many, especially if you have spent many years working in the same area or studying for a specific job. This is why it’s important to be sure about the kind of work you want to change to, and volunteering can ensure you get a much better idea of what you will be doing.
Once you have determined what you think would give your life more meaning, you should find a way to volunteer in that sector. This could be in medicine, education, charity work, housing, the environment, local government, or anything else. By volunteering – something you can do in your own time and that won’t affect your current job – you can find out more about the sector you want to get into. You can know for sure whether it will be meaningful to you once you’re working in it.