Money Vs. Meaning: Is the Struggle Real or Imagined?
Why changing your perspective might be all you need to do. Five key questions to ask yourself
If you’ve been around Medium for any length of time or even the internet, you’ll likely have come across the do what you love, you’ll never work again BS. And woven in there is the idea that loving what you do is what gives your life its meaning.
Maybe, but possibly not.
For a large part of my career, I loved what I did so much, I ate, slept, and breathed it. But it was the work. Hard work. Routine 80-hour weeks, honing my craft.
But then, it stopped. My career that is.
It got stopped by a life-changing accident, that I’m still recovering from, some five years later. I simply couldn’t/can’t do what I did before. No more 80-hour weeks for me.
When what you’ve known for 20 years is suddenly removed from your list of life options, it leaves you in a bit of a weird, alien place.
I took more of a role with a client I knew I could impact more, as much for the money on offer as for the need to do something with other people. I love this client’s CEO. But the area his business is in is not professional services which was always my stock in trade, dealing with questions that made my head hurt on a daily basis.
The further into this role I got, the more I seemed to achieve — on the outside. I loved the wins but at the same time, it seemed less creative than my previous adventures. Something was lacking.
I felt like I’d sold out on my life’s purpose. My foundation felt like it was missing.
A Purpose Vs. Dollars Reset
Recently I mentioned to a friend that I had been fighting with myself on the topic of money vs. meaning.
I just don’t think I can have both anymore. The world’s changed and I’m mostly starting again. It feels like I’ve got almost nothing of my old life left career-wise. So now a bit behind the 8 ball. Everything’s different, nothing makes sense any longer. I feel like a lost alien that can’t get back home.
Have you ever felt like this?
My friend, who is a very senior woman in a consulting business, came back with something that surprised me. Her perspective was that most folks often felt like that — although a lot of people don’t necessarily share those feelings.
According to her:
“The whole world and how business operates has changed. We’re all floundering, trying to figure out how to excel at whatever is needed next. It’s 100% true across my CEO clients, and I hear it from nearly all clients at the firm.”
She went on to suggest that my personal disruption aligned with the rest of the world’s disruption, so it all but effectively evened the playing field.
Wait What? It’s Not Just Me?
Colour me surprised. Or more specifically to quote Gru “Lightbulb!”
Yep. The world has changed, and very few of us feel like we have a good foundation anymore. There’s just no safe route any longer. Once upon a time, you went to school, got a good job, yadda, yadda. Not anymore. There’s just too much uncertainty — accidents or not.
And I’d gotten terribly comfortable in my assumptions that life should reward me for my past actions. Nope. And if it couldn’t nudge me out of my comfort zone, it would crowbar me out of it by hitting me with a car (yep, really).
So much for my future plan to continue with regular programming.
Hopefully, you’ll be smarter than I was and take evasive action to make plans to exit your comfort zone before that decision is taken out of your hands.
Turns out we all have to build new meaning-making foundations, especially those of us who’ve been around the block a couple of times already if we’re planning on working for more than 5–10 years. Those with shorter horizons might just get away with it — if they’re lucky.
And frankly, relying on luck is no longer my go-to.
Building A New Foundation
Turns out, unsurprisingly, that building a new foundation or finding the meaning in what you do, although necessary, isn’t easy. In fact, the older you are, the harder you might find it.
Why?
Because your brain will very helpfully suggest that you deserve better. You should be due rewards because you’ve amassed all your experience. I know my brain did. So not helpful. Please, if you need it, take my permission slip for you to ignore your brain’s less-than-helpful urgings.
I found that I’d been going so hard at trying to force a move forward, because I should be there already, that all I was effectively doing was spinning my wheels, doing a burnout. Which was reflective of the burnout I was feeling in real life.
Needless to say, it wasn’t working.
My new mantra is never should all over your life.
You can whinge about how unfair everything is; what you should have; stomp about, throw a tantrum, and/or try and force things. Or you can just get on with building a new foundation — which will take as long as it takes. Sorry, there are no quick and dirty fixes for foundation building. But…
The Upside of Moving Forward
You might even be in for a bit of a happy surprise. Once you get past your grumbling/tantrums about how unfair things are (I mean, not that you’d do that, it was probably just me), you start moving forward.
And then, you might realise that you’ve already been moving forward.
You might find there are things you’ve been doing (probably unknowingly, whilst whinging — again, maybe that was just me) that have prepped your new foundation. It might not be the actual concrete foundations per se, but maybe it’s developing your plan or your footings for the concrete pour.
5 questions that might help you move forward
- What can you repurpose as you move toward your new foundation? I’ve written a lot of content on Medium over the last couple of years. All of which I can use in the future for repurposing to drive toward what I want for my future.
- What’s your real timeframe? You don’t need to achieve everything in the next two minutes. There’s time. In my case, I’ve another 5–10 years++ to get it done. So I can take my foot off the accelerator and save my tires (and my body’s burnout).
- What more could you learn and/or contribute? If you slow down and do not try to accomplish everything in the next two minutes, you might actually enjoy life more. In my case, I love the wins. And I can, it turned out, contribute more of the stuff I used to love doing, not only staying current but learning a truckload more along the way.
- Ask what your deeper purpose is. Your purpose or what you derive life meaning from isn’t just about your business or career or how you earn money. I thought mine was marketing. Nope. Turns out my real purpose is moving the world forward on equity for women and girls — something I’ve been doing forever (often without noticing). When I really thought about it, I could use both my business and personal time to move that dial slowly — one tiny action at a time.
- How might you affect small changes toward your purpose? If your purpose is really big, it’s not something you can fix overnight (or likely alone), and trying will result in disappointment and burnout. But you can contribute to change on a case-by-case basis. Slowly. Only slow and steady wins that race. It will be a marathon, not a sprint.
All of this made me remember what the Navy SEALs say:
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
Yeah, that. In my case, it’s reaching one person at a time by helping them achieve agency over their own lives.
Money doesn’t always equal meaning. But likewise achieving meaning doesn’t mean turning your back on an income. There are always ways forward. You just need to take them. And be okay with being uncomfortable for as long as it takes to get your new foundation poured and set.
I wish you well.
Big, giant, hat tip to my friend and coach Kendra Kinnison.
Kristin Austin — Marketer, Business owner, Comms expert, Lover of good food, friends & cocktails. Recovering from a life-changing injury. Still learning. Have me speak at your next event.