How to Make Work Work for You
The answer's revealed in this smart PBS Digital video
Australian science educator and filmmaker Vanessa Hill opens her clever PBS Digital BrainCraft video, Why Do We Work? (below) with a provocative question: If you didn’t have to work, and received an endless allowance, would you still choose to have a job?
The way you answer Hill’s question, she maintains, depends on how you approach work. For some, work is a job. For others, it’s a career. And for others, it’s a calling — doing what you believe you were born to do.
The Importance of Purpose at Work
As the editor of Next Avenue’s Work & Purpose channel, I’m a big believer in finding work that offers you purpose and meaning, if you can. I think that’s especially important for people in their 50s and 60s who are at the point in their lives where purpose matters more than when they were starting out and wanted a job to pay the bills.
Hill’s breezy film notes a few key research studies on what motivates people to work. My favorite: The hospital janitors who found purpose by being there to comfort and entertain patients and families, even though, as Hill says, this was “not part of the position description.”
Have a look. After watching it, as Hill says, Monday mornings may become a little less of a struggle.
