What makes work work?

What makes work work?

What makes you work?

I spent last week supporting my daughter and her husband with their new baby. We made a good team and had a lot of laughs despite the challenges. My activity was varied and meaningful. I was well equipped to do it, by experience but also by learning from them about current approaches and thinking. I was given some specific tasks, with clear instructions. I also saw what needed doing and just got on and did it. My suggestions were listened to and often acted upon, and if not, I understood why. I felt purposeful and valued. There was no better way I could have spent my time and effort for those seven days. All round, it was a rewarding experience, as well as a precious one.

In fact, it replicated many of the factors which have been shown to lead to work satisfaction and much of the positive stuff I used to feel about my old job, pre-pandemic. Great team. Many laughs. Mutual support. Valuable work. Building on experience. Learning new things. Instruction and autonomy. And so on.

Yet while last week was a form of work, and a satisfying one, when I sat back down at my laptop today to pick up where I had left off, I realised that there is something else which defines ‘work’ in a very positive way for me.

I felt the kick of my intellectual engagement with my chosen topic: the nature and experience of work and careers at 50+. And I felt a real swell of excitement about the reflections and ideas which emerged, including from knowing that they can benefit others.

It’s not that I need to exercise my mind to a useful end in order to be happy. But when I do, I feel switched on and energised. And it strikes me that this is why I work and have not retired (see my recent post on the ‘R’ word!), and why I do this particular work.

Rather than getting into needless discussions about what does and doesn’t constitute work, I’m interested in what makes work work – in this good way – for individual people. Not the generic work satisfaction factors, but the particular thing that turns them on and makes them do what they do, or indeed makes them work at all, where they have a choice.

We each have our own version of it. What’s yours? What makes you work and what makes work work for you?

If you don't have an answer, you may be wondering if you're in the right place doing the right thing. We can work on that if you get in touch.

I coach clients in or approaching their 50s and 60s to reassess what they want or need from work at this point in their lives, and to redesign their careers to create a future that energises them.

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash