Meaning in Work is a Unique Specialization in Meaning in Life...☯️

Written And Recorded By Bruno GR Gama

Meaning in life is commonly incorporated in definitions of well-being that sustain positive physical and psychological health outcomes from research exploring how meaning improves happiness, satisfaction, and quality of life. Yet, differences between meaning in life and meaning at work that share similarities are somewhat distinct. Meaning in life refers to meaning through voluntary pursuits in life more generally, while meaning in work has specific criteria shaping how it is approached in life changing meaning to a specialized set of measures that consider unique factors related to the workplace such as income, roles and job demands. Intrinsic motivations provide insight into how internal psychological needs influence performance and well-being under voluntary conditions compared to more controlled motivations offering external rewards. This is useful as meaning in life as well as work both share intrinsic and external motivational structures that are consistently measured as in well-being but operate uniquely to work. When motivation comes from within individuals are more likely to be absorbed in what they do through self-awareness that involves congruence and coherence between the self and environment. As motivation moves towards external rewards such as income, organizational citizenship behaviour is associated with more frequently reported rude behaviours and ill-well-being, suggesting that external motivations are linked to negative outcomes in the workplace while internal ones predict positive effects. The meaning associated with autonomous integration of motivation provides insight into how well-being and performance can be improved through alignment with the self and environment. By bridging the gap between meaning through self-aware engagement in the environment, explanations on how work engagement related to well-being and authenticity operate corresponding to meaning in well-being. Independent from work is life more generally that is not easily captured by specific measures such as work engagement, income or job satisfaction though there are important links. Measures of positive functioning investigating how mindset, environment, stress and illnesses related to physical and mental health are impacted tend to inform us about work populations related to well-being at the general level. In other words, the work environment is different than life more generally as key factors are being measured under various conditions. Work provides specific criteria that can create specialized measures such as job satisfaction, turnover, organizational civility and uncivility, and job performance related to specific work tasks that are unique to work than how individuals may respond in other areas of life such as leisure or other commitments. 

Defining Meaning in Life from Meaning in Work

Meaning in life is not the same as meaning in work according to differences between general and specific categories of analysis that examine general level effects more broadly, with specific measures unique to organizational psychology changing the defining criteria of meaning in work that is not the same as meaning in life. Meaning in work is specialized to a specific workplace context involving job demands, roles, work-related performance, and job satisfaction compared to life which examines individuals across general situations that are more closely linked by measures of well-being than scales modified to suit the workplace asking specific organizational level questions that do not always generalize to other areas of life. Meaning in life is far broader in scope, containing within it meaning in work as a portion of life characterized by specialized criteria directly related to work and organizational functioning. Engagement refers to the degree of energy invested in striving towards an objective characterized by absorption and dedication. Work engagement involves measures related to efforts made on task demands that are specific to the workplace and may be held to a different standard in other areas of life...

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If engagement has unique effects that impact meaning in life differently than at work, there is a need for theory to explain the differences between meaning in life and how it differs at work. Autonomous motivations are frequently linked to engagement and well-being involving sustained interest, curiosity, and larger output on innovative work behaviours predictive of improved creativity, performance, and well-being. Though research often emphasizes limitations that pertain to studies done on working populations with a fragment examining the broader implications of well-being as it relates to life. Leisure for example can be thought of as another area of life where engagement and meaning have unique characteristics associated with greater opportunity to engage in more autonomous behaviours. Life in a broad context allows for a wider variety of intersecting factors and captures core personality traits that work may moderate. It is argued that authenticity is related to meaning at work through specific adaptions to a work setting interacting with mindset in unique ways with the environment, placing working demands individuals move towards performing specific tasks described by a work role that defines a set of activities to meet expectations of a job as well as extra-role tasks that are performed related to that job. Authenticity is defined as congruence and coherence between the self as well as the environment allowing for insight related to self-awareness. Self-awareness in authenticity can also act as a personal resource individuals can draw upon to solve problems  and come to understand the self or environment in grounded ways. Work expectations place unique demands that can impact meaning in life in different ways than meaning in work. Engaging in activities for work-related purposes can allow for flexible ways of acting that diverge from other aspects of life in how well-being is influenced in relation to authentic behaviour, meaning, purpose, and subjective measurement scales measuring happiness along with quality of life...

External Motivations are Linked to Distress

Studies exploring internal motivations found that external motivations were linked to distress more frequently than intrinsic motivations with more voluntary behaviours and thoughts linked to autonomy. Turnover was also predicted to be positively associated with external motivations while having a positive impact on increasing performance. Temporary efforts are exerted for external rewards that are hedonically influenced when reward forms the primary moving force that improves performance at the expense of wellness. Even external motivations that are introjected closer to internal motivations compared to solely external ones done for an outside reward, greater effort is exerted when motivations are made voluntarily not influenced by controlled motivations that exist at the opposite end of a scale. This means that outside motivations closely related to the external environment have less of an impact than voluntary motivations when engaging in activities. Intrinsic motivations influence job satisfaction, workplace happiness, and job productivity in positive trajectories primarily by connecting psychological factors to behavioural and environmental correspondences. The environment is related through experience by deeper inner connections projected outwards related to interest and autonomy. A partial explanation that can be inferred from intrinsic motivations relates autonomy directly to interrelated measures of well-being forming measurable behaviours that are correlated to positive functioning. Higher work engagement associated with autonomy provides a pathway for uniting an individual to the surrounding environment in a way that can bestow greater self-awareness through connectedness to the external environment. Self-aware individuals who score higher on measures of authenticity tend to be implicated in several interrelated factors that improve workplace wellness and performance, suggesting authentic behaviour acts as a personal resource important to addressing distress and ill-well-being that share common features to autonomous motivations to engage with the environment in ways that satisfy deeper psychological needs positively impacting healthy functioning. Acting in ways that are aligned with the environment seem to provide a unique benefit to well-being that is more about knowledge related to the self and work environment. How self-awareness operates may exist differently when working under demands that have expected roles and extra jobs done by individuals at work that form distinct psychological effects that are specialized to working conditions. Self-awareness implicated in authentic behaviour in life may have different implications than work by specific demands, roles, and behavioural outputs that are altered through expectations, mindset, and approaches to performing a task...

Self-Awareness Connects Self to the Environment Increasing Autonomous Motivations 

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Meaning and authenticity while related refer to different aspects of a functional system of perceptions that support living well. Meaning in life can be approached differently in work environments through pathways of engagement and authenticity related to well-being as independent links, separating authenticity from engagement and well-being while remaining a reliable metric of analysis. Authenticity specifically considers self-alignment with expressing an individual’s inner world in genuine, congruent, and coherent ways, meaning on the other hand refers to value and interest that connects the self to the world in important ways. Provided that the self is a deeply psychological construct meaning can exist outside the context of authenticity separating authentic behaviour from engagement and interest involved in meaning processing with an inner link to the external environment. Self-determination connects autonomy more directly to positive functioning promotes involving voluntary activities that engage the environment linking job demands and resources to expectations of a job task and performance. Meaningful work may also be distinct from meaning in life by specific moderators between relationships, where measures of work engagement rely more commonly on the same Utrecht Work Engagement scale for psychometric analysis that could mediate effects in important ways. This is not the same as a measure of meaning in life used in well-being, or captures engagement in contexts outside of work, therefore the effect may differ considerably under some contexts that apply to specific work criteria. Engagement tends to receive greater consensus in measures important to meaningful work not necessarily to life at large, influencing positive predictors of work-related well-being and performance, the measures have largely been developed in research examining well-being in the workplace. In relation, authenticity in the workplace predicts reduced turnover, and increases in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance implicating engagement as important to understanding voluntary motivations as essential aspects of meaningful work. Taken together, autonomous motivations form a reliable predictor of performance and well-being compared to external motivations by engaging in meaningful activity bridging individuals to the environment through inner correspondents to the external environment that optimize functioning. This has looked at some factors related to well-being that have been specialized to meet the expectations of the workplace that can differ in significant ways involving life-moderating effects on well-being and performance related to rest, family, leisure and other factors unique to lifestyle such as activity level play a role in life in ways that may be unique from work.

Interest is Essential for Improved Well-Being Related to Autonomous Motivations

Important to understanding workplace motivations is the source of motivations as either an internal or external origin. Psychologists refer to internal motivations as intrinsic and motivations influenced by outside rewards as external motivations. Intrinsic motivation consisting of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. What one finds internally enjoyable or interested in is related to an individual’s autonomy. Interest is a positive emotion that can allow individuals to expand beyond personal values and get more immersed in work. Individuals who tend to report higher rates of workplace satisfaction, reduced turnover and greater innovative workplace behaviours tend to be more actively engaged at work. By contrast, meaning associated with work has received inadequate research attention and tends to be frequently linked with other moderating variables such as engagement, positive emotion, and curiosity. Meaning in life and meaning at work refer to different questions that require different levels of analysis at the general and specific levels. Research examined focuses primarily of measures related to the workplace and work engagement that could operate differently to meaning in life more closely captured by distinct measures used to account for different intervening influences at the general and specific levels of analysis. Subjective well-being and more objective measures of well-being have been included in 2 meta-analytic studies highlighting findings on engagement. Both incorporated aspects related to three types of wellness, hedonic (positive emotions), engagement (dedication and absorption on work tasks), and eudaimonic (meaning related to a sense of something greater than the self). Interest associated with voluntary activities appear to be the greatest predictor for performance and well-being compared to external motivators that involve outside rewards. Though measures that focus on work engagement tend to dominate effects of work on well-being compared to studies examining how meaning in life impacts work suggesting more is known about work engagement than meaningful work, with specific measures and considerations that accurately capture the effects of work engagement compared to engagement in life in broader contexts. In other words, what is intrinsically motivating opens voluntary attitudes and behaviours to energize activities towards performing even when demands are the same or higher compared to external motivations impact on work tasks. However, decisions outside of work contexts have different roles and demands that would shape measures related to engagement and well-being by examining relationships at a larger level of analysis that assess similar, and where possible, the same measurement criteria allow for more accurate comparisons, and meta-analytic tools that can build understandings at scale, separating life at a general level from the specific. Work effects are not always generalizable to all of life, though work effects and aspects of life at large may share common features that link together such as interest, the role of autonomous motivations, personal resources and improved well-being as well as performance involving pathways of engagement...

Interest, Curiosity, and Autonomy

Interest seems to play a crucial moderating role that can facilitate workplace learning and performance by fostering intrinsic motivation associated with curiosity. Becoming absorbed in one’s work, improving on a process, or seeking out greater opportunities for growth helps individuals to become more involved in the workplace predictive of positive reports regarding workplace satisfaction and happiness. Autonomy has a significant association to work engagement linked to innovative workplace behaviours through a pathway of curiosity facilitated by interest. Autonomy may be a pathway that connects the inner world to the external environment through interest and engagement. Creative workplace behaviours tend to emerge as a byproduct of engagement that allows for greater authenticity at work that connects individuals’ internal interest with the surrounding environment without necessarily drawing upon value-based actions but rather more spontaneous and experimental behaviours. If it is true that work and life provide different modes of operating in the world, acting in congruent and coherent ways with one’s self and the environment functions differently at work than in life in general through specific workplace expectations, demands, roles and responses. For example, individuals may act in different ways are work than in other areas of life that diminish the quality of evidence by limitations of research. What is studied in a work setting may not generalize to life, and vice versa, changing the function of meaning on well-being to focus more directly on an individual’s sense of autonomy that connects meaning and engagement to life in general and specific ways related to work. Interest at a general level allows for developing meaningful relationships linking the self to the environment, but it can also extend beyond it or lead to dead ends that are motivated by internal enjoyment. At the specific level, workplace engagement provides a meaningful adaption that preserves individual autonomy when specific demands and roles are accomplished in ways congruent with voluntary behaviour. Work acts as a modulator on PERMA in comparison to measures of meaning and engagement outside of work life suggesting that measures of work-related well-being and engagement are specific adaptions to working conditions involved in a work setting environment placing jobs demand, work roles and reliance on workplace resources that are used when studying workplace behaviour, performance and well-being... 

Meaning, Authenticity and Autonomous Motivations on Innovative Work Behaviours

The meaning in life may manifest itself differently at work as a result of specific measures for work. Authentic action that emerges through an interest in work tasks aid in the catalyzation of innovative work behaviours unifying an individual’s autonomy within an organization, though effects for authenticity outside of work are not accounted for in these studies. The working self is not the whole self but rather a unification of an individual’s autonomy expressed at work through a pathway that links an individual’s internal world to the external work environment. Work engagement provides key insights into how this relationship operates through seeking out opportunities to perform more effectively, develop skillsets, learn, and grow that do not directly translate to personal values independent from influences on intrinsic motivations involving personal autonomy. Autonomy acts as a buffer against turnover, workplace dissatisfaction as well as poor performance. Increasing personal resources through interventions that promote mindfulness fosters curiosity in job tasks by increasing interest and improving an individual’s sense of autonomy and self-reported rates of well-being. Autonomy is a stronger predictor of work engagement, innovative workplace behaviour, and individual well-being than dimensions of the PERMA model forming an intercorrelated construct with several moderators. In other words, getting interested in a work project might have more to do with developing intrinsic motivations linked to curiosity and authentic resources than it does with engagement, while being engaged allows for improvements in well-being that originate through a pathway beginning with individual autonomy. Getting involved means you have to be interested at the very least in what you are doing, not necessarily finding it meaningful. The value appears to come after exploring an interest and engaging in a work task in ways that involve employees allowing for authenticity and meaning to emerge out of a process of self-discovery at work...

Conclusion

Meaning in life while important to well-being does not always operate the same when considering contextual factors in work. Job tasks change the pathway of meaning that often begins with interest as an essential facilitator of positive work engagement and authenticity. By connecting the internal world of interest to the external world where one works more authentically, creative innovative work behaviours are more likely to manifest promoting better well-being related to workplace satisfaction, happiness, as well as reducing turnover. Implying personal autonomy is crucial to enhanced well-being at work where meaning is more convoluted suggesting interest and engagement act divergently upon improving functioning associated with wellness. By cultivating a stronger sense of personal autonomy at work through personal skills that increase interest in a task such as mindfulness, developing deeper forms of engagement can help to foster voluntary motivations allowing for authentic forms of expression at work that promote human flourishing. It may also be useful to journal about goals related to specific work tasks that align with the workplace to develop authentic work behaviour that focuses interest on an environment...

Links

Medaris, Anna. (2024). What do people really want in their work? Meaning and stability. Retrieved from: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/01/trends-meaning-stability-workplaces

Morgan, K. (2023). The search for 'meaning' at work. BBC. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220902-the-search-for-meaning-at-work

References

Ibrahim, N. F., Sharif, S. M., Saleh, H., Hasan, N. H. M., & Jayiddin, N. F. (2023). PERMA well-being and innovative work behaviour: A systematic literature review. F1000Research, 1

Sutton, A. (2020). Living the good life: A meta-analysis of authenticity, well-being and engagement. Personality and Individual Differences, 153, 109645.