Chatting at a midlife wedding this weekend, I was struck (again) by how many men are struggling to work out what they really want to do. Not when they grow up, but with the rest of their working lives. If you are, you are not alone.
This experience resonates with my current doctoral research. Last year, I interviewed 20 men between 37 and 61 about what fulfilling work means to them. These men worked in very different spheres and were spread across a variety of different countries. Here are three key insights from this work…
Firstly, all the men had experienced work fulfilment, not all the time, but they knew the experience well, and genuinely valued it. They also knew when work definitely was not fulfilling too! Although they knew the experience when prompted, by asking a few questions, many admitted they had rarely paused to think about what they find fulfilling. They had just got on with work and done what was expected of them. For many of them, the interview was like a coaching session – inviting them to pause and reflect, making sense of what was already known unconsciously, a safe non-judgemental space.
When you look back over your career, do you feel you have experienced ‘fulfilling work’? How did you know it was fulfilling?
Secondly, the experience of work fulfilment is more shared than previously thought. Career research has assumed that what we find fulfilling is unique and different for all individuals. My recent research challenges this assumption. Six consistent themes emerged with all participants identifying the same overall features. I analysed interview transcripts for 60 people across three groups (midlife women, midlife men and women in their 20s) and consistent themes emerged, within and between groups. There were nuances of course in what each theme means to a person, but at a high level the features of what makes work fulfilling were the same. A dominant theme across all the groups, was ‘making a positive difference’. The specific difference will vary, but work is more likely to be fulfilling if you know you are making a positive difference in some way.
To what extent do you make a positive difference in your current work? How do you know?
Finally, work fulfilment is a full body experience – involving your thoughts (cognitive), emotions (affective), and physiology (psychophysiological). Psychologists have argued for sometime that work fulfilment involves cognitive and affective evaluations about your work, but until now had not realised the sensory components. Feeling fulfilled evokes strong physiological responses too – boosting your energy (rather than depleting it) and allowing your space to breathe, stretch, and grow.
Can you say a bit more about the sensory experience of feeling fulfilled? Where do you experience it?
Midlife men may not always have had the time or space to think about what work fulfilment means to them but, with a pause and a safe space, they can usually figure it out quite naturally. By midlife, we are not a blank page we have lots of experience to draw on, providing clues for what suits us, and what does not.
In the research interviews, I also asked participants to think of a metaphor that captures the experience of feeling fulfilled. For some, feeling fulfilled is the feeling you get after a challenging hike or run and you get to breathe and take in the view.
For others, it’s a warm walk in nature where a river meets the ocean, or freediving unencumbered, or a chance to pause and reflect calmly, or chatting around the kitchen table with loved ones. Uplifting, positive, freeing, natural experiences.
In one sentence (or a few words), what does fulfilling work mean to you at this stage of your life?
Fulfilling work 