“I do my job, but sometimes I lose sight of why.”
Sound familiar?
Your calendar is full.
You move from one task to the next.
You are busy, but at the end of the day you wonder what you have really contributed.
You do what needs to be done, but notice your energy gradually draining away.
Your work does not have to feel significant or inspiring every day. Sometimes, work is simply work.
But when you spend a long time mainly focused on obligations, solving problems and pushing forward, your connection to the meaning of your work can fade.
And that connection is essential for staying motivated, engaged and sustainably employable.
Research on meaningful work shows that employees who experience their work as meaningful often report greater engagement, job satisfaction and motivation. Meaningful work is also associated with a lower intention to leave the organisation and with more positive work behaviour (Batz-Barbarich et al., 2018).
Research on sustainable employability also shows that it is important to enable employees to achieve valuable work goals. In other words, people do not remain employable only by staying healthy, but also by being able to do work that aligns with what matters to them and allows them to use their strengths.
Vitality is not only about exercise, healthy eating or getting enough recovery.
It is also about the question: What do I want to give my energy to?
At Moovs, we look at vitality from four perspectives: physical vitality, mental clarity, emotional resilience and meaningful, sustainable employability.
In this post, we focus on meaningful employability: how can you continue to contribute in a healthy and engaged way, both now and in the long term?
One simple first step: end your workday by answering three short questions.
What did I do today that added value?
Which of my strengths did I use today?
Where would I like to direct my energy more consciously tomorrow?
This reflection only takes two minutes. Yet it helps you look beyond everything that still needs to be done and recognise the contribution you have made.
This is how meaningful work becomes less of a large, abstract concept and more something you can strengthen every day through small choices, conversations and moments of attention.
At Moovs, we help organisations make vitality and wellbeing tangible in the workplace. In our training programmes, we work with topics such as energy management, talent development, personal effectiveness, ownership, happiness at work and sustainable behavioural change.
Would you like to explore how vitality and wellbeing can play a greater role within your organisation? Get in touch with us for a no-obligation conversation.
Or download our Vitality Wheel: a practical overview that helps you look at vitality more broadly through four perspectives, each of which can be translated into small actions in the workplace.
You take the first step, we inspire the next.
Group Moovs versterkt organisaties met innovatieve leeroplossingen, leiderschapsontwikkeling, coaching en meeslepende trainingservaringen. We zijn gespecialiseerd in leiderschap, menselijk gedrag en meetbare leerimpact, zodat teams kunnen floreren in een snel veranderende wereld.
