When you get bored with your daily tasks from work which feel less and less important each day, you might be asking yourself this question: “Why should I do this? What’s the point?” Similar question also pops up when you are assigned to a difficult task that you do not really understand. At this point, you might feel like you have stuck somewhere between try harder and why bother. You feel even worse when you compare your current occupation with other people whose jobs seem to be more interesting and meaningful for the world.

Some people simply do not care about having purposeful career. All they know is that they get up in the morning, show up at work as scheduled, spend working hours in the office, do their jobs and try not to make the boss upset, then receive the salary they deserve each month. Meanwhile, you want more than just following the routine and make a living. You are pondering whether your job is significant or has meaning at all.

Thoughtful individual realises that getting the tasks done and getting fat paycheck will not guarantee job satisfaction and engagement. All of these factors do not matter if they are unable to build a sense of belonging to their job. Instead of making money as the main driving force that motivates you to go to work every day, you should find the meaning and significance of what you are dealing with at work.

But what should you do when you start to think that your job is actually meaningless? Should you just quit and pursue another career? Before making such career change, it is better for you to observe the situation and find the way to make it more substantial:

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Value the lesson and experiences

Have you ever counted how many lessons you have obtained since the very beginning you started your first day at the job until today? To find meaning in your job, you should be grateful of what your current occupation has given to you. You should value how the job gives you chances to hone your skills and learn new things, such as getting to know different work environment, culture, coworkers, and many more. By doing so, you will understand that the job is meaningful for your self-development regarding.

Connect the dots

Imagine that you are a dot and the other dots are your job, your team, company, customer, society and the world. Though it might be indirect, you have a particular role which influences the life of those subjects. Try to connect the dots to find out your function and imagine how difficult it is if there is none holding your position. Additionally, it is important to ask ‘why’ to your boss whenever you get a task that you do not understand the purpose. By knowing your role and every purpose of your tasks, you will believe that actually you are useful and your job is meaningful.

Think about the potentials

If you think that currently you are not useful enough, you can find other way to make yourself useful in this job. In another word, you should create your own meaning. You can do this is by setting up better career plans and responsibility. You will not feel meaningless anymore when you can be a leader or manager who has bigger responsibility to manage the team to optimise teamwork performance. However, while you might be yet to reach such position, you can try to practice your leadership skill by learning more things, helping others, making yourself more reliable for others, as well as doing good deeds which help you create meaning.

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