How to Find a Higher Purpose in Your Work

What is purposeful work? How do you identify and leverage it to retain loyal employees? These are some of the questions employers ask as they try to harness their workforce productivity.

Employees want more than just a salary - they want fulfilling, meaningful work.

Discovering how to make your employee's work more purpose-driven and connecting their daily tasks with the overall high-level goals of the company creates enormous value. 

Here are our 6 top tips on how to find a higher purpose in your work.

1: Reflect on Your Core Values

Personal core values are the ethics and ideals that guide your decision-making process. It also determines how you build relationships with other employees and project team leaders.

One of the ways of identifying your core values is by monitoring how you react or approach physically demanding tasks. Identifying these principles and beliefs has been proven effective in enhancing employee's job satisfaction.

They will serve as a compass or blueprint, directing you towards work or roles like project team leader that resonate with what truly matters to you. Strive to consciously connect with your core values, have the right mindset always, and become a constant learner.

2: Identify and Define Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Identifying and defining your strengths and weaknesses will help you to pinpoint where your skills and interests converge.

For employers, providing opportunities that help employees identify their strengths results in much lower employee attrition and significantly higher employee advocacy. So, strive to identify employee's strengths to harness their skills and encourage continuous learning.

As an employee, knowing what you are good at and the areas that you need to work on will be pivotal in finding purposeful work that is both fulfilling and purposeful.

It doesn't matter whether you work for a small company or a multinational e commerce company or serving military members; defining your strengths and weaknesses will have a major impact on your performance at work.

3: Set SMART Goals

Setting goals is one of the strategies that the most successful senior leaders and technology companies use to stay on parallel career tracks. The goals help them to adapt career paths to changes and trends in industries like the retail industry, which is highly competitive and digitized.

Your goals need to be SMART to guide you in identifying meaningful work. SMART stands for;

• S - Specific
• M - Measurable
• A - Achievable/Attainable
• R - Relevant
• T - Timely

Borrow a leaf from USAA employees and smart assistants who set and monitor their goals and achievements every month. Reevaluating the goals and adjusting to different work and life circumstances helps them to remain committed and consistently contribute positively to the company's mission.

4: Create A Personal Mission Statement

In the current gig economy, most people have two parallel career tracks. Having two or more jobs provides job security and financial gains.

That said, having a personal mission statement that aligns with your core values, principles, and goals will help you connect jobs and create purposeful work for yourself and the team if you run a business.

Like the SMART goals we discussed earlier, your personal mission statement will serve as a guiding principle in your career decisions and daily life.

Even when assigned mundane tasks, you can accomplish them with a positive mindset, knowing that the tasks are aligned with your aspirations. Use individual contributor track record or performance as motivation to exceed your industry average threshold.

5: Practice Gratitude

Gratitude refers to being thankful for what you have, even though it may not be enough. Practicing gratitude is the new secret weapon for success.

Appreciating the tasks or projects will rewire your brain to consider every challenge a worthwhile mission, which should be done well and at the highest level possible. The intrinsic value of the task or product won't deter you from committing fully to the project.

For example, suppose you are a staff UX researcher. Companies taking too long to approve reports and act on your recommendations or seniors ignoring your requests for better pay won't discourage you from doing your work.

As an employer, practicing gratitude will inspire employees to work hard and nurture customer loyalty. You won't be spending millions hiring new employees and mock boot camps.

Instead, the current employees will be more willing to take on more roles on the sales floor and determined to become more uniquely qualified.

6: Contribute Beyond Work

The secret to identifying enjoyable elements and making work interesting is looking for ways to contribute to activities that are not related to your profession but resonate with your values. 

Volunteering or participating in community projects will further enrich your sense of purpose. The interpersonal skills and experience you will acquire will help you leap into big success in your career.

Conclusion

Finding a higher purpose in your work is an ongoing process that will evolve depending on your industry and market trends. Regularly adjusting and seeking new opportunities that align with your values will help you get more satisfaction from your work.

More importantly, network with other industry leaders to learn new skills and stay on top of your game. For this, you need a modern digital business card designed with the needs of the modern world in mind. Create your digital business card today.

We also have a team management solution, Popl Teams, that hundreds of brands use as their primary customer relationship management system. Join us to scale up your business to the next level of success. Contact us to schedule a free demo.