I was on a call with a client recently and she was talking about what she didn’t like in her current job. She said “I know I’m helping people, but I don’t feel like I’m helping people”.
Immediately I understood exactly what she meant. I had experienced this same feeling when I was working as an OBGYN. I knew I was helping women in some capacity, but the work still felt so empty.
On the surface, this idea may sound strange and confusing.
How can you KNOW you are helping people, but not FEEL like you are helping people?
Where is the disconnect? What is not adding up? What is missing that is keeping you from really connecting to your work and feeling that impact?
These are such great questions and it’s exactly what I want to talk about in this blog post.
HOW do you want to help people?
Most jobs that we do help people in some way.
Uber drivers help you get from point A to point B in a convenient and affordable manner. Baristas help caffeinate you so you can get your work done. Realtors help you find a home or investment property. A massage therapist helps you relax and heal your body. A yoga teacher helps adjust your posture and guide your practice.
Basically every job that exists, exists to help people in some way. Even if you aren’t directly working with people in a service type industry, it’s likely that the work you are doing is helping people.
For example, my Dad is a software engineer. He spends most of his time typing complicated code into a computer. The work he does helps to create safety software that allows airplanes to fly without crashing. That helps anyone who has ever taken a flight. Even though he isn’t receiving letters from people who fly on his plane expressing gratitude for the safe flight, he is still helping those people.
If you are receiving money to do something, I can guarantee you that the work you are doing is providing some value to some person on this planet.
So the question isn’t “ARE you helping people through your work?” It’s are you helping people in a way that feels good to you? Are you helping the kinds of people you care about in a way that matters to you?
Because there is a huge difference between objectively helping someone in a measurable way and helping someone in a way that is meaningful to YOU personally.
It’s the difference between doing work and doing meaningful, purposeful work.
It’s the difference between KNOWING you are helping someone and FEELING like you are helping someone.
When you work doesn’t FEEL meaningful
When I was an OBGYN resident, I knew I was helping people in an objective sense. I was performing a service that improved their life in some measurable way.
Before coming to see me: patient didn’t have birth control and didn’t want to get pregnant.
After coming to see me: patient had an IUD which could prevent pregnancy for up to 5 years.
Problem solved. Need met. Boom. I helped someone.
Here’s another example:
Before coming into the hospital a patient is pregnant and scared and wants to get their baby out safely. After my team helped them through labor, delivery and their immediate postpartum care, they were able to leave the hospital as a healthy mom and a healthy baby.
Objective. Measurable. Helpful.
It is fairly obvious to see that as an OBGYN I was helping people, and while there was some level of satisfaction that came from helping someone reduce a tension in their life, it didn’t last.
At the end of the day, it felt empty and meaningless.
It felt like…. “Ok, now what?”.
This was especially confusing for me because as an OBGYN, as I was helping bring life into the world. I was present for a deeply profound moment in a new parent’s life. I got to witness a baby taking it’s first breath, parents crying and laughing at the same time with joy and relief.
And yet, these moments that were supposed to be so full of meaning, felt so empty for me. I didn’t understand how I could feel such little satisfaction while being a part of these huge, life moments.
It didn’t make sense.
What was going on?
Well, part of it was burnout. Burnout can cause a sense of numbness to glaze over you making you ambivalent to the highs and lows of life. It can cause you to be painfully neutral.
But that’s not the full story.
The other part of it was that I didn’t FEEL like I was helping people because I wasn’t doing MEANINGFUL work.
What is meaningful work?
Meaningful work is work that matters to YOU personally. It is work that aligns with your values and uses your authentic gifts and talents. It is work that helps others AND doesn’t leave you feel drained and depleted. In fact, doing meaningful work is often highly energizing.
Meaningful work is work that allows you to FEEL like you are helping someone.
Our society has tried to dictate what counts as meaningful work.
It’s meaningful work to save lives. It’s meaningful work to help the poor and homeless. It’s meaningful work to risk your life fighting for your country.
Those are all wonderful things, but the problem is there is no “one sized fit’s all” approach to meaningful work.
Meaningful work is highly individualized. What is meaningful to one person, isn’t necessarily meaningful to someone else.
Plenty of people find great joy in helping deliver babies. It wasn’t for me.
I find great joy in writing blog posts that uplift and inspire others. Plenty of people can’t stand writing and wouldn’t write 1000 words of anything if their life depended on it.
We are all meant to find joy and meaning in DIFFERENT things. That is what will ultimately allow our society to thrive and flourish.
We can’t follow one definition for what counts as meaningful work, we have to figure out what kind of work is meaningful to US personally and pursue that.
What happens when you do meaningful work
When you are doing meaningful work, you FEEL like you are helping people.
And as we have talked about several times so far: KNOWING you are helping someone is different than FEELING like you are helping someone.
Feeling like you are helping someone is when you can see that someone’s life is better because of something you did or said, AND that realization washes over you in the most profound way.
You get goosebumps.
You are filled with a deep sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.
You are lit up from the inside out.
You feel energized with purpose and possibility. You feel a sense of awe like “wow, this really helped someone.”
You want to tell everyone about your experience.
I’ve experienced this sensation countless times since starting my online coaching business. but one of the most memorable moments for me came after I published my book “Residency Drop Out”.
I received a Facebook message from a physician in NY who said he was burnt out, depressed and contemplating suicide and reading my book gave him hope.
I felt so overcome with emotion I couldn’t speak or really even breathe.
It wasn’t just the depth of the impact, it was the WAY I was able to make that impact.
I made the impact on this person doing something I enjoyed and was good at: writing.
I made the impact sharing authentically about my unique personal experiences.
I made the impact by being myself and by sharing my gifts with the world.
That is meaningful work. That is what it’s like to FEEL like you are helping people.
The ingredients of meaningful work
This topic also came up recently in another client session. We were doing module 7 of The Career Fulfillment Formula which is all about uncovering your zone of genius.
She was sharing about a moment where she felt like she was making an impact. She gave a talk over zoom and got several messages from people afterwards about how her words really spoke to them and helped them.
Hearing this feedback after her talk and knowing that she tangibly helped someone felt amazing and so rewarding to her. While she was talking about this experience on our call, her face was so lit up and joyful.
Then I asked her if she has ever helped someone in her work at the hospital. She said, “well yea of course.” She’s had plenty of patients come in for follow up visits and express gratitude for how she’s helped them.
I asked her how it felt to help her patients. Her face dropped a bit and she said “yea, it doesn’t feel as good”.
It felt better and more rewarding for her to help people through giving a talk than it did to help her patients.
Why is that? What is going on here?
After breaking it down a bit more to better understand the differences between those two situations, we came to a few conclusions.
Helping her patients felt rigid and regimented. It felt like she was following a protocol and providing a service. She felt like she could be easily replaced by someone else providing the exact same service. It was a copy and paste situation. A cog in the wheel.
Whereas giving the talk was something she put her heart, soul, creativity and individuality into. It was a unique expression of her authentic gifts and personality. Even if someone else gave the exact same talk read verbatim from her notes, they couldn’t do it in the WAY she did it. They couldn’t mimic her emotions and expression and delivery.
This story represents the differences between doing work where you KNOW you are helping someone vs work where you FEEL that you are helping someone.
Here are some of the key distinctions:
Meaningful work is work that uses your unique gifts and strengths.
It is work that aligns with your values and doesn’t leave you feeling drained and depleted.
It is work that you find joyful and involves helping people who matter to you or a cause that matters to you.
It is work that allows you to be YOUR authentic self and to help people on YOUR terms.
This is exactly the work I help my clients start doing in The Career Fulfillment Formula.
During the 8 weeks we get clear on YOUR definition and version of meaningful work so you can start doing work that is more fulfilling to you personally.
If you are ready to start enjoying your work, click here to book a discovery call.
