Does work bring Meaning to your life? Odds are, that for most, the answer is no. In the U.S., 76% of workers have shared that they have at least one symptom of a mental health condition. Strikingly similar, the latest Gallup poll shows that 77% of the workforce is disengaged. The crisis has become pressing enough that the Surgeon General is prioritizing workforce health and wellness.

We know that, on average, a third of our lifetime is spent at work, which accounts for a third of our energy, relationships, and time. Yet, 84% of workers report that the workplace does not support their mental health. While the workforce wants more support and access to mental health and well-being resources, the complexity and ethical implications of companies providing solutions are extremely difficult to navigate. 

It’s not like these dismal numbers are anything new, they’ve been building for some time, and for the most part, we haven’t noticed. Desmond Tutu is quoted saying, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

However, it’s tough to go upstream in a deluge of topics that rush at us daily. These include The Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting, Quite Firing, Bare-Minimum Mondays, 4-day work week and however we decide to rename our next shade of apathy, anxiety or passive-aggressive attitudes into a sexy hashtag.

But if we look deeper, all these phenomena, facts and figures have something in common. The relationships and narratives we have to work, life and to each other are in need of an upgrade. The values and beliefs that defined how we interpret and engage in our existence are worn out. The authorities, gurus and people we put on pedestals can no longer supply our sense of personal meaning, whether at home or work. We have to do it for ourselves. And guess what? Many of the systems and infrastructures that supported these old systems of meaning are exhausted and in need of a serious upgrade too.

All of these responses indicate a general attitude of triviality towards work and life. And triviality carries little to no meaning. The evidence is becoming clearer every day. Finding your meaning begets a better life experience with a lower occurrence of depression, anxiety and disease.

Meaning at Work

We might not see it, but leaders and workers are in the same river. Everyone must walk upstream, turn over rocks and discover their own sense of meaning. No one else can do it for us. When we begin the journey of knowing ourselves, we can begin a real journey of stewarding the organizations we work for with a sense of obligation to the work we do and the people we work with.

Inner Life as the Map

Self-transcendence is the bedrock of finding your meaning at work. This is the practice of discovering your innermost questions and orienting your quest, through a jungle of choice to find something within yourself that is bigger than yourself to serve. It’s a courageous and humbling journey, but well worth the struggle. 

At Pathways, I designed the Work with Meaning program to give people and organizations tools that work. Similar to Carl Jung’s concept of individuation in business and life, we seek out differentiation. We tend to value and pay a premium for goods and services that we believe to be unique. Why? Psychologically, this is because the uniqueness within is repressed; therefore, we project our own drive to individuate onto external objects and experiences.

There are a lot of varying approaches to self-understanding and self-authorship emerging as a response to the meaning challenge we all face. There are also a lot of rabbit holes that are roads to nowhere.

Finding the right intervention with the right tools at the right time will be most effective and save the most time. Programs, such as Work with Meaning, can help people and organizations dig into their patterns, basically mining meaning from the narratives and scripts, in an effort to analyze and synthesize them into a coherent, unique model. These courses are now designed for work-journey and to help organizations define and address meaning.

Since our personal lives follow us to work every day, we often try to separate these issues, appropriately, with some success. But it’s clearly evident that suppressing our journey for one-third of our existence might be one of the main culprits of organizational stunting and mental health issues.

Work with Meaning

Through this work, and in partnership with Humanity by Design, our preliminary findings have revealed the long-term health and wellness benefits of finding your meaning. Mental health and wellbeing are at stake in the workplace, this cannot be underestimated. The fuel of engagement, entrepreneurship and leadership is meaning. It’s a necessary and courageous investment in yourself. Is there tension? Yes. We all need to put food on the table, but meaning can turn chronic stress into the type of tension that has a more harmonious strum.

Problematic misnomers of a larger issue in the workplace will persist, as it has for decades if we do not address and navigate our own unique sense of meaning. The priority of the Surgeon General to improve the workplace will remain and the opportunity of what we, as unique and vast individuals with various strengths, will be lost. But imagine what may be possible if taken seriously.

Synthesizing one’s inner life with their outer life offers no easy answers, but is transformational for our lives, work and world. It does not happen overnight. It takes small brave choices over time and investment in the self. When we forgo engagement in trivialities and take ourselves seriously, we begin to forge a deeper connection with who we are, which in turn generated agency, integrity and trust.

Bio: Danny Gutknecht, renowned for his dedicated pursuit of the relationship between meaning and work, lays bare the transformative potential of this connection in his book, “Meaning at Work: And Its Hidden Language.” As the CEO of Pathways and a dedicated scholar, Gutknecht brings to light the invaluable role that purpose plays in both business and society, urging readers to embrace its power.

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