How to Love Your Job (Even When It Isn't Perfect)

I can still picture the look on my Baby Boomer mother’s face the first time I posed a work-related existential question. Was she happy in her career? Was it fulfilling and purposeful? Her response, the blankest of stares, told me all I needed to know. Purpose and fulfillment were things you found off the clock. And work was work—a paycheck and a means to an end.

As a younger Gen-Exer with some Millennial tendencies, I understand why the question confused my mother. But I’m part of the tribe seeking something more from my career than a paycheck. (Though I do love the paycheck.) Work commands a lot of my time, energy, and attention. I want to do what I love and love what I do. Not every minute of every day, but on balance.

I’m part of the tribe seeking something more from my career than a paycheck. Though I do love the paycheck.

I’ve learned that finding job-love isn’t passive. It’s not about luck. It requires us to take an active role in making it happen for ourselves. So, if we want work to fuel more than just our bank accounts, what’s our responsibility?

How to love your job

When I’m coaching someone looking to bump up the pleasure-levels in their work, here are some of the gems we cover.

Follow the thread to impact

Yale Professor Amy Wrzesniewski has done a great deal of research to understand why some people love their jobs and others don’t. Specifically, she spent time with hospital staffs and learned that some janitors considered their work to be a slog of clocking in, cleaning, and clocking out while others expressed a sense of pride in and commitment to the exact same work.

She interviewed some janitors to understand how people doing the same work could have such different experiences. She discovered that those who loved their jobs described their work in terms of impact. These contented janitors didn’t speak of mopping halls and stripping beds. They described maintaining a sanitary space in which patients could heal, and babies could safely be born.

Hospital janitors who could see the clear connection between their daily efforts and patient outcomes were able to extract more meaning and pleasure from their work.

Everyone she interviewed had the same responsibilities on paper. But the ones who could see the clear connection between their daily efforts and patient outcomes were able to extract more meaning and pleasure from their work.

Now you may not work in a hospital, and your work may not be contributing to life or death outcomes, but there is a human person somewhere at the end of the...

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