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As I finished teaching a workshop a few weeks ago, several twentysomething women gathered around me to chat. Thinking they were going to ask me about the content of my presentation, I prepped myself to discuss with them additional stories and statistics about resilience, but that’s not what they had in mind. They leaned in and asked, “How did you do it? You know, how did you figure out how to quit practicing law to pursue your own business?” The questioned surprised me, but it’s one that I’ve been hearing with greater frequency.
During my law practice, meaning wasn’t exactly high on my list of things that really mattered. I was focused on achievement and to me, that was measured in dollars earned, deals closed, and hours worked. It wasn’t until I burned out and was forced to focus on my next steps, that I realized that meaning not only matters, but without it, I wasn't going to be as happy or resilient as I wanted to be. In addition, I realized that a business built around passion and purpose could feed my soul as well as my bank account.
Toward the end of my career, I would have happily returned part of my salary in exchange for something that filled up my meaning tank. Helping people buy and sell real estate to create new developments is worthy and important work, but knowing you’ve helped a multi-million dollar company make more money doesn’t really leave you feeling like you’ve changed the world. It became critical for me to build my new venture around something I was passionate about, and I'm not alone. Recent research shows that millennials, in particular, consider meaningful work to be as important as making a high salary.
To be clear, I’m not talking about meaning exclusive of achievement; instead, what I’m talking about is finding a way to make money doing something that really gets your juices flowing. As I’ve discovered, when you begin using meaning as the lens by which you filter how you work, what opportunities you take or decline, or how you spend your free time, you’ll start to notice that the achievements come much more easily.
If you want to integrate more meaning into your life or take a big leap (to start a new business based on a passion you have, for example), here are some tips:
Know your PERMA equation. In his latest book, Flourish, Dr. Martin Seligman advances a new theory of well-being that he calls PERMA. PERMA is an acronym that stands for positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. My friend and colleague, Gretchen Pisano, turned the acronym into an equation. Imagine you have twenty points to allocate among each PERMA category or bucket. When you’re functioning at your best, what is your equation? How many points are you allocating to the meaning bucket? Now, create a PERMA equation for what you’re feeling like now, and compare it to the equation when you’re at your best. If the meaning bucket is too low, are you robbing from it to bolster one of the other categories? What can you do to replenish the meaning bucket?
Ask, is my work a job, career, or calling? People spend over a third of their waking life at work, but levels of work satisfaction vary widely from person to person. Amy Wrzesniewski’s research shows that those who consider their work to be a job are generally interested only in the material benefits from their work and do not seek or receive any other type of reward from it; those who consider their work to be a career have a deeper personal investment in their work and generally seek to advance not only monetarily but also within the occupational structure; and those who consider their work to be a calling usually find that their work is inseparable from their life. Those with a calling work not for financial gain or for career advancement, but for the fulfillment that the work brings. Wrzesniewski explains that those who consider their work to be a calling generally have a stronger and more rewarding relationship to their work. To determine whether your work is a job, career, or a calling, visit www.authentichappiness.org to take Wrzesniewski’s short assessment entitled “Work-Life Questionnaire.”
Know “your sentence.” Dan Pink wrote about this concept in his book Drive, and the idea originated with Clare Boothe Luce who was one of the first women to serve in Congress. Ms. Boothe Luce told President Kennedy that a great man could be summed up in one sentence. While you craft your sentence, each day ask, “Was I better today than yesterday?”
Create THE LIST. I designed this activity to help people reconnect with activities and general pursuits that they’ve always loved to do, but which disappeared in the hustle and bustle of life. To develop THE LIST, set aside at least an hour to reflect on all of the things you’ve loved to do throughout your life. You will start to see patterns emerge when you felt great joy performing an activity or impacted someone’s life because of the unique talents you bring to the table. Figure out how to incorporate the items on THE LIST into your work and into your life.
Be smart. If you decide that you want to be your own boss, keep your day job as you begin to explore other areas. In addition, make sure you have a financial safety net to see you through the next year or two of transition and business start up costs. Finally, don’t aim for perfection. Refining your business objectives is an ongoing process. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward.
One of my favorite quotes is by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said, “Too many people die with their music still in them.” Regardless of how old you are or where you’re at in your career, know that it’s never too late to start incorporating more meaning into your life.
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Paula Davis-Laack, JD, MAPP, is a lawyer turned stress and resilience expert who works with women attorneys to help them manage their high-achieving ways to build stress resilience and avoid burnout. A portion of our profits each year goes toward advancing the educational and entrepreneurial efforts of women in the United States and around the world. Connect with Paula via:
Her website: www.marieelizbethcompany.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marieelizabethcompany
Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauladavislaack
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References
Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York: Riverhead Books.
Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Free Press.
Wrzesniewski, A. (2003). Finding positive meaning in work. In K.S. Cameron, J.E. Dutton, & R.E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship (pp. 296-308). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
