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| Meta Title | Four Ways People Find Meaning Through Work |
| Meta Description | Helping others live a life of meaning has been something thatās animated my own purpose ever since I first grappled with Viktor Franklās philosophy, logotherapy. |
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| Boilerpipe Text | Helping others live a life of meaning has been something thatās animated my own purpose ever since I first grappled with Viktor Franklās philosophy, logotherapy. Having purpose at work is also something we hear much more about these days. More individuals over the last couple decades sought jobs in harmony with their life purpose. As we wrote in our bestselling book Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career : āMany, for instance, are realizing that they want to do more purposeful work. For them, the definition of making progress in their careers is better aligning their work with what gives their lives meaning .ā Share The Future of Education But we also saw in our research that finding purpose at work didnāt explain many of the job switches of the 1,000-plus people we studied. What was universal is that those who switched jobs were trying to make progress in their lifeā as they defined it āin the context of their struggles, circumstances, and goals. That helps explain what Michelle Rhee , the former chancellor of Washington, D.C.ās public schools and currently a venture partner at Equal Opportunity Ventures , told me: ā[Young people] donāt really care a ton aboutā¦ what the work is,ā she said. āThey want it to fit into their lifestyle. And itās clear that those folks, like, they need income, right. They got to pay the bills, they gotta have something to eat. But I think thereās also something else out there that is, you know, more meaningful to them that they want to spend the majority of their time on potentially.ā Iāve been thinking a lot about how to square the importance of purpose with these dual realities since our bookās publication a year ago. Itās among the reasons Iām so excited to attend the Human Potential Summit in Utah, a gathering of business leaders focused on reshaping the talent ecosystem from the inside out, on November 12th. At the Summit, Gallup will share its findings from the research it has conducted to understand where different people are finding meaning in their lives and the intersection with work. Iām intrigued to compare what theyāve learned with the insights that were staring us in the face from our research of over 1,000 job switchersābut we didnāt explicitly call out in the book. Refer a friend Our research suggests that some people are looking to their job for meaning and purpose in their lives. Others arenāt sure what their purpose is or what gives them meaningāand they are looking to discover it through work (consistent with Franklās views of one way to find meaning in oneās life). Some people arenāt necessarily looking for their job to be their lifeās purpose, but they do want whatever they do at work to have real meaning and impactāas they define it. And still others are looking to their job to allow them to pursue their purpose outside of work. They view work as a means to meaning elsewhere, in other words. Iād love to hear your perspective. Share in the comments which of the 4 patterns resonates with you most at this moment in your career and life: Finding meaning in your work Discovering purpose through your work Creating impact through your work Using work as a means to pursue purpose elsewhere What else am I missing thatās staring at us in plain sight to help individuals make progress in their lives through the work they do? |
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# Four Ways People Find Meaning Through Work
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[Michael B. Horn](https://substack.com/@michaelbhorn)
Oct 29, 2025
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Helping others live a life of meaning has been something thatās animated my own purpose ever since I first grappled with Viktor Franklās philosophy, logotherapy.
Having purpose at work is also something we hear much more about these days. More individuals over the last couple decades sought jobs in harmony with their life purpose.
As we wrote in our bestselling book ***[Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career](https://www.amazon.com/Job-Moves-Making-Progress-Career/dp/B0CVCFX6BD/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WLS839D189WR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8uGwF6hAGYKpE8q21WIyNKVJlr7QGOWdF4PIsK4ZcdLGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.RKQAK3tiYg6mjw0jasHOu1OI9J0gnGZM_m7Wa60js0U&dib_tag=se&keywords=job+moves+ethan+bernstein&qid=1761091940&s=books&sprefix=job+moves+ethan+b%2Cstripbooks%2C214&sr=1-1)***:
> āMany, for instance, are realizing that they want to do more purposeful work. For them, the definition of making progress in their careers is better aligning their work with what *gives their lives meaning*.ā
[Share The Future of Education](https://michaelbhorn.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)
But we also saw in our research that finding purpose at work didnāt explain many of the job switches of the 1,000-plus people we studied. What was universal is that those who switched jobs were trying to make *progress* in their lifeā*as they defined it*āin the context of their struggles, circumstances, and goals.
That helps explain what **[Michelle Rhee](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marhee/)**, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C.ās public schools and currently a venture partner at **[Equal Opportunity Ventures](https://www.linkedin.com/company/eo-ventures/)**, told me:
> ā\[Young people\] donāt really care a ton aboutā¦ what the work is,ā she said. āThey want it to fit into their lifestyle. And itās clear that those folks, like, they need income, right. They got to pay the bills, they gotta have something to eat. But I think thereās also something else out there that is, you know, more meaningful to them that they want to spend the majority of their time on potentially.ā
Iāve been thinking a lot about how to square the importance of purpose with these dual realities since our bookās publication a year ago. Itās among the reasons Iām so excited to attend the **[Human Potential Summit](https://www.linkedin.com/company/human-potential-summit/)** in Utah, a gathering of business leaders focused on reshaping the talent ecosystem from the inside out, on November 12th. At the Summit, **[Gallup](https://www.linkedin.com/company/gallup/)** will share its findings from the research it has conducted to understand where different people are finding meaning in their lives and the intersection with work.
Iām intrigued to compare what theyāve learned with the insights that were staring us in the face from our research of over 1,000 job switchersābut we didnāt explicitly call out in the book.
[Refer a friend](https://michaelbhorn.substack.com/leaderboard?&utm_source=post)
Our research suggests that some people are looking to their job for meaning and purpose in their lives.
Others arenāt sure what their purpose is or what gives them meaningāand they are looking to discover it through work (consistent with Franklās views of one way to find meaning in oneās life).
Some people arenāt necessarily looking for their job to be their lifeās purpose, but they do want whatever they do at work to have real meaning and impactāas they define it.
And still others are looking to their job to allow them to pursue their purpose outside of work. They view work as a means to meaning elsewhere, in other words.
Iād love to hear your perspective.
***
**Share in the comments which of the 4 patterns resonates with you most at this moment in your career and life:**
1. **Finding meaning** ***in*** **your work**
2. **Discovering purpose** ***through*** **your work**
3. **Creating** ***impact*** **through your work**
4. **Using work as a** ***means*** **to pursue purpose elsewhere**
What else am I missing thatās staring at us in plain sight to help individuals make progress in their lives through the work they do?
The Future of Education is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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[2d](https://michaelbhorn.substack.com/p/four-ways-people-find-meaning-through/comment/171452612 "Oct 29, 2025, 4:25 PM")
Liked by Michael B. Horn
In my experience as a career counselor/coach and leading career development teams, I have found that groups 1 and 3 on your list are in essence the same thing, and I don't know that it's particularly useful to separate them. I think you could simplify this model into three parts: 1. Work as Prototype - using your work to learn something about yourself and what you want to do, or to develop a skill that you think/know you will need to use later. 2. Work as Meaning in itself - the work I do is meaningful or impactful (has values or spiritual or impact alignment), and 3. Work Supports Life outside of work - work as enabler of my purpose outside of my job or work is something I just do because one needs to do it to survive.
I think in this framework \#1 is a means to numbers 2 and 3, so this would be more like a flow chart - some people choose to do \#1, but some people don't, they jump into \#2 or \#3 without the need for \#1.
Would love to chat more about this any time! :-)
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