Yale psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski made her living studying how our mental conceptions of our jobs affect performance. After many years and hundreds of interviews with workers in every profession imaginable, she found that employees had one of three “work orientations” or mindsets regarding our work. We see our work as a job, a career or a calling.
People who have a “job” see the work as a chore and their paycheck as a reward. They work because they have to and look forward to the time they can spend away from their job.
In contrast, people who see their job as a career job not only out of necessity, but also to progress and succeed. They are invested in their work and want to do well.
Finally, people with calling sight work as an end in themselves; their work is satisfying not because of outside rewards, but because they feel it contributes to the greater good, taps into their personal strengths, and gives them meaning and purpose. Unsurprisingly, people with a vocational vocation not only find their work more rewarding, but work harder and longer because of it. And as a result, these are the people who are generally more likely to get ahead.
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For those who see their job as a calling, this is great news. Those who don't, don't despair. Wrzesniewski's most interesting discovery is not only that people view their work in one of these three ways, but that it doesn't fundamentally matter what kind of work one has. She found that there are doctors who only see their job as a job and janitors who see their job as a calling. Indeed, in a study of 24 administrative assistants, each orientation was represented in nearly equal thirds, even though their objective situations (job description, salary, and education level) were nearly identical.
What this means, it's that an appealing orientation can have as much to do with the state of mind as with the actual work being done. In other words, disgruntled employees can find ways to improve their working lives that don't involve quitting, changing jobs or careers, or leaving to find themselves. Organizational psychologists call this "job creation," but in essence, it's just about changing your mindset. As Wrzesniewski puts it, “new possibilities open up for the meaning of work” simply by the way “it is constructed by the individual”.
How does it work? Well, if you can't make real changes in your day-to-day work, ask yourself what potential meaning and pleasure already exists in what you do. Imagine two janitors at the local elementary school. One focuses solely on the mess he has to clean up each night, while the other believes he is contributing to a cleaner, healthier environment for students. They both take on the same tasks every day, but their different mindsets dictate their job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, and ultimately how they do their jobs.
Related : 6 Mindset Shifts That Will Improve Your Life
In my business consulting work, I encourage employees to rewrite their “job description” into what Tal Ben-Shahar calls a “call description.” I got them thinking about how the same assignments could be written in a way that would entice others to apply for the job. The goal is not to distort the work they do, but to highlight the meaning that can be derived from it. Then I ask them to think about their own personal goals in life. How can their current job duties relate to this larger goal? Research has shown that even the smallest tasks can be more meaningful when tied to personal values and goals. The more we can align our daily tasks with our personal vision, the more likely we are to see work as a calling.
Try this exercise:
Turn a piece of paper horizontally and, on the left side, Write down a task that you are required to do at work that does not make sense. So ask yourself:What is the purpose of this task? What will he accomplish? Draw an arrow to the right and note this answer. If what you wrote still seems unimportant, ask yourself again:What does this result lead to? Draw another arrow and write it down. Continue until you arrive at a result that is meaningful to you. This way you can connect every little thing you do to a bigger picture, to a goal that keeps you motivated and energized. If you're a law professor and you hate paperwork, draw your arrow until you can connect it to something you care about, like providing a new generation of young lawyers with the resources they need. to succeed.
Chip Conley, an innovative hotelier, uses a similar strategy to engage its employees. He likes to say to everyone, “Forget your current job title. What would our clients call your job title if they described it by the impact you have on their lives? When you make those bigger connections, your mundane tasks not only become more palatable, but you perform them with far greater dedication, and you get higher returns as a result.
Related: 5 things you can do to improve your mindset in 20 minutes
