Do you find your work genuinely fulfilling? If your answer is along the lines of ‘meh, not really’, you’re certainly not alone – just look to the rise of trends such as lazy girl jobs and bare minimum Mondays for proof that many workers aren’t champing at the bit to get grinding. The 2023 Gallup engagement survey found that in the UK, just 10% of people said they were highly engaged at work, while 76% described themselves as not engaged and 14% said they were actively disengaged. 

Clearly, there’s something up with our attitudes to work. For some of us, that might be down to toxic workplaces or needing a pivot. But for many, a lack of engagement is a result of feeling aimless. When it feels like what you’re doing doesn’t mean anything, it’s hard to ramp up any enthusiasm. 

So to tackle our disengagement problem, the answer seems clear: we need to find purpose and meaning in the work we do. Kevan Hall, CEO of Your Portfolio Life and author of Find Your Purpose, believes this is vital. 

“Work can be challenging: endless emails, too many meetings and balancing work time with family and other commitments can make it feel as though work is just a distraction from life,” Hall tells Stylist. “But on the other hand, work can be the source of great satisfaction and achievement, and most of us need to work to provide for the other things we value.

“Many of us spend 40% of our waking lives for around 40 years at work. If we are not happy and fulfilled at work, we have no chance of an overall happy life. How you spend your time is the quality of your life and work is a major contributor to that.”

In short: feeling purposeful at work is important. How do we get there? Hall breaks down the steps. 

“It is hard to find fulfilment in work unless you understand what gives you meaning,” Hall tells us. “Spend some time reflecting on these questions for your work:

• Can I work according to my values, the things I believe in?
• Can I pursue my passions, the things I love to do?
• Can I exercise my strengths, the things I am good at and enjoy doing?
• Can I follow my purpose, to move towards what gives me real meaning?

“Being clear about what gives you meaning provides you with a compass to help you improve your current job and make more fulfilling choices about your next one.”

A meaningful life does not take place only in the office. If you have a job you love but it doesn’t tick all the purpose boxes, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should quit and retrain entirely. Instead, look at the purpose-shaped gaps your work isn’t quite filling and be open to other ways to take up that space. 

“If you’re very lucky you can fulfil all of your needs for meaning at work, but it’s more likely that we need to build a portfolio of life activities that allow us to do these things,” says Hall. “For example, if you value creativity but your job doesn’t enable you to express it then you need to exercise this in other areas of your life such as in your leisure or hobbies.”

Making your job more purposeful doesn’t always mean finding a new one. The key often lies in ‘nudging’ your job closer to what you really want. This is ‘job crafting’.

“Job crafting involves reengineering three key elements of our jobs,” Hall explains: 

Our tasks

“Spend more time on the tasks you enjoy doing and try to reduce or eliminate the ones that don’t. Start by keeping a note of which tasks in your job give you energy and make you feel fulfilled, and which don’t. For the tasks that don’t, look at how you can eliminate or automate the work. Perhaps one of your colleagues would trade tasks with you so you each get something you enjoy more.”

Our relationships

“Try to improve the quality of your relationships at work. Think about how you spend time with people at work and how they make you feel. Invest more time with people who give you energy and are pleased with your successes. Focus on the impact of your work on others to bring more meaning to what you do.”

Our attitude

“Your attitude shapes your experience, if you expect work to be a drudge, your brain will seek out examples of when it is, and they are sure to be there. However, if you reframe your ideas about work to be more positive, focus on what your work and income help you do in other areas of your life, and on the opportunities to grow, learn and make a difference at work, then you train your brain to pay attention to these more positive aspects, and you will find you notice them more.”

Hall notes: “If you’re making a dramatic change, you certainly need to involve your boss and colleagues, but all of us can, to a certain extent, nudge our role in the direction we want it to go. New developments in artificial intelligence are already bringing opportunities for us to automate our basic administration and routine tasks and make more time for the more human and interesting parts of our jobs.

“If you can swap out just an hour a day to spend on things that you enjoy more at work this adds up to 30 more fulfilling days per year or a 13% more fulfilling job. If you can improve one hour, why not two?”

If you’ve tried all of the above and your job still feels like something you don’t want to be doing, it might be time to move on. 

Hall adds: “If you really can’t find fulfilment in your existing job, then use the results of your reflections on what gives you meaning to help you find a more fulfilling next role – life is too short to spend 40% of it unfulfilled.” 

Images: Getty