Good Morning Readers: In order to insure I don’t contaminate anyone here in Panama with the OH cruddy cough, as well as now trying to heal a lower broken right rib from a wildly toxic sneeze already stressed by a week of that relentless DEEP DRY coughing, I am confining myself to minimal activity in the house and no social contacts for a few more days. What can I say, except I think God knew I needed some additional time to first heal, and at the same time, hopefully get our life’s big picture clearly in focus before I drag Loretta down any more bunny trails.
There are so many different venues that God is revealing to me that could be possibilities so I am asking you to join me praying for these future posts, to avoid wasting everyone’s valuable spiritual time and energy. Never before have I committed nearly a dozen posts to one author in succession. However this Tom Rath book, “Are You Fully Charged?” has already dominated my life for 10 months and tweaked my interest in preparing HS curriculum inserts and as module inserts for HR’s departments. So, today we’ll continue with my summary of Chapter 2, and plan to conclude on Friday Aug 15th.
Chapter 2 is titled “Pursue Life, Liberty and Meaningfuless.” For those of you desiring more “meaningfulness” from Tom, email me & I’ll send you a Word doc. of the ten chapters I’ve summarized thus far, or better yet, go to thriftbooks (earlier they had 8 copies @$6.19 ea.) so order your own copy(s). Who else do you know who could benefit from Tom’s journey to find meaningfulness in their work, & especially, retirement? And I also trust, you’ll encourage others to subscribe to the blog and thereby increase our efficiency.
The study of meaningfulness has been influenced by Viktor Frankl’s landmark 1946 book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, which chronicled his experience in a Nazi concentration camp. Years before, as a medical student, he was trying to prevent suicide in teenagers struggling with depression by helping teens find practical goals and steps that create “specific and individual meaning,” as Frankl states “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.”
A 2014 study followed teens for a year to see how their brains reacted to self-fulfilling (hedonic) acts versus using fMRI scans and questionnaires. While the participants were in the fMRI scanner, researchers posed scenarios to them about keeping money for themselves versus donating it to their families. The researchers also followed up at the end of the year to review any changes to review any changes from the teens’ baseline of depressive symptoms. The results revealed that teens who had the greatest response to meaningful actions had the greatest declines in depressive symptoms over time. In contrast, teens who made more self-fulling decisions were more likely to have an increase in risk of depression. Meaningful activity essentially protects the brain from dark thoughts solidly confirming Frankl’s earlier work as a med student with suicidal teens that the need for meaningful work begins when we are young continuing on through life.
Get a Charge From Within
Meaningful work is driven by intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. Extrinsic motivation is when you do things primarily to receive a reward whereas intrinsic motivation, or deep internal motivation, is much richer, fueled by the meaningfulness of the work you do being driven by what you yearn to do even if there is no reward or compensation. The emerging research from Yale’s 14-year study of 11,320 West Point Cadets suggests it is better to focus solely on intrinsic motivation, because deriving any motive whatsoever from external incentives could decrease performance.
Think about the implications for your work. When you are bombarded with conventional carrot-and-stick motivators, even if they help at first, they are not sustainable. Instead, look for small ways to keep your best internal motivators front & center throughout the day, such as family photos on your phone lockscreen, or whatever else drives you.
Forge Meaning in the Moment
Meaning does not happen to you – you create it. One of the most important elements of building a great career and life is attaching what we do each day to a broader mission. Until you understand how your efforts contribute to the world, you are simply going through the motions each day. Start by asking why your current job or role even exists. In most cases, jobs are created because they help another person, make a process more efficient, or produce something people need. When you really think about it, it’s not that difficult to find meaningful aspects of almost any job. But it may take effort on your part to analyze how you can begin attaching meaning in those small relational interchanges while at work, connecting the dots in your work &/or play cultures.
THINK ABOUT IT:
For most of us, creating meaningfulness on our own time, is not the problem. It’s how we do it at work, where most people spend most of their waking hours dedicated to being full-time workers, students, parents, or volunteers.
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