4 Ways of Living a Meaningful Life No Matter What You Do at Work

Now that I am a life coach and I am directly serving others, helping them live a purpose-driven and peaceful life, I often get asked how a receptionist or a pizza-delivery guy can live a meaningful life.

With a society like ours, where we have miscommunicated the true definition of purpose, it sounds about right to have these kinds of questions. Due to media, we might think that if we are not impacting 1 Million lives on the planet, we are not living our true potential.

I don’t think that’s true.

You don’t have to change everyone’s world; you have to change someone’s world — starting from yours.

Our jobs help us earn money and pay for food and other stuff. Maybe that’s the only reason you go to your job. Maybe you don’t go to work to create an app that would change the world. And it’s perfectly okay.

This thought led me to brainstorm how we can live a meaningful life despite what we do for work.

Here are 4 ways you can live a meaningful life no matter what you do at work —

Your life-purpose starts with you

You don’t have to change everyone’s world; you have to change someone’s world — starting from yours.

Your world starts with you. Before moving forward to serve others, ask yourself these questions —

• Are you taking good care of yourself?
• Are you balancing your life in terms of improvement and acceptance?
• Are you doing everything you can do to be happy and content in yourself?

This doesn’t mean all of the answers to these questions need to be perfect. But they need to lead you to a place where you are self-sufficient.

If you are yet to start this beautiful journey, start by helping yourself. Look out for everything you can do to improve your own quality of life. You can do a self-assessment of different areas of your life.

You can start with these 5 life areas —

1. Your physical health
2. Your mental health
3. Your finances
4. Your relationships — with friends, family, and your partner
5. Your career

Rate them individually with a score out of 10. Anything that’s below 7 or 8, you can start working on that stepwise.

Radiate joy and love

Joy has been proven to radiate a lot higher frequencies than shame, apathy, or anger.

This means only if you learn how to shift from anger, shame, guilt — to joy, peace, love you will be spreading higher vibes around yourself.

Our vibes impact others directly, and the way we are feeling in the current moment, our environments, and the people around us are affected by that.

This means that if we do whatever we do with joy and love, we w be spreading more joy and love. And isn’t that something meaningful to do?

How to make the shift from anger and frustration to joy and love?

Here’s this 3-step Choose Again method from Gabrielle Bernstein’s book “Super Attractor” that we can use to make this shift —

Step 1: Recognise your thought. This is the self-awareness step. Consciously ask yourself, how do I feel about my job? Why am I feeling this way?

You can’t get better without admitting you have a problem. Here are some questions you can answer to recognize your thoughts —

1. What am I avoiding here?
2. What’s the inspiration for my decision?
3. How am I feeling today?
4. What’s the root of this feeling? Is it love or fear?
5. X ways my fear fools me most of the time.

Do this kind of self-awareness journaling for a few days straight so that you could go to deeper levels of your consciousness.

Step 2: Forgive yourself. If you don’t forgive yourself, you will hold on to the past and the negative patterns you were a part of in your past. Accept your past. Embrace your imperfections. And realize that these incidents have helped you grow and prosper.

One way to forgive is to feel gratitude for them. Be thankful for your thoughts for showing you what you don’t want in life, and now you can move forward to have what you want in life.

Forgive your thoughts. Forgive yourself.

Step 3: Choose again. Ask yourself, “What’s the best-feeling thought I can have right now?” Follow it through.

You may feel stuck here. And it’s perfectly human to feel stuck. Here’s something you can do in that case. Make a statement, write it down, or say it out loud — “I am open to the creative possibilities for abundance.”

It has been a personal affirmation for me, saying out loud this statement — “I am choosing to learn with love.”

Cause no suffering to others

There’s enough suffering in the world.

And if you’re not in a position to help anyone — the best thing to do is not to harm anyone, not to cause anyone any suffering.

Let’s not talk about how veganism can make you kind and compassionate. It has definitely done that for me, though.

Let’s talk about other non-violent activities you can practice. Not speaking hurtful words (that includes sarcasm and insulting jokes) would be a great start. And not cursing someone with abuses or fights — that would be amazing too.

“Non–violence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

You get to decide — how can you reduce the suffering in this world?

Another contributing support to reduce the world’s suffering — show compassion to others.

You don’t have to be a doctor to help everyone. Some people only need a non-judgemental pair of ears. Maybe that could be your life purpose.

Here’s a checkpoint question for you —

“Am I being kind and compassionate to everyone who works and lives with me — my colleagues, my neighbors, my family, and everyone I talk to every day?”

Living a life of service

When you continue putting yourself in the limelight, when you focus on your issues and problems — you go down the rabbit hole of ungratefulness and even more troubles.

Instead, when you focus on something bigger than your problems, to serve others live a better life — your own worries fade away.

So, what can you do for someone else today? Can you feed a stray dog and give a homeless person a rug?

Or can you start by offering a compassionate hug to a friend in need?

Your acts of service don’t need to cost you money. They need to come from a place of love and compassion.

And that’s all that matters when you intend to live a meaningful and purpose-driven life.

Final words

Due to media, we might think that if we are not impacting 1 Million lives on the planet, we are not living our true potential.

And this isn’t the case.

Living a meaningful life would mean changing someone’s world — starting from our own.

And the best 4 ways to live a meaningful life no matter what you do at work is —

1. Your life purpose starts with you. Take good care of yourself, and practice a balance between self-improvement and self-acceptance.
2. Radiate joy and love. Do it often at work and home.
3. Cause no suffering to others. Be compassionate and help reduce others’ suffering—practice non-violence in your thoughts, words, and actions.
4. Do small acts of service. Care about others. Your acts of service don’t need to cost you money. They need to come from a place of love and compassion.