Helping others live a life of meaning has been something that’s animated my own purpose ever since I first grappled with Viktor Frankl’s philosophy, logotherapy.
In my experience as a career counselor/coach and leading career development teams, I have found that groups 1 and 3 on your list are in essence the same thing, and I don't know that it's particularly useful to separate them. I think you could simplify this model into three parts: 1. Work as Prototype - using your work to learn something about yourself and what you want to do, or to develop a skill that you think/know you will need to use later. 2. Work as Meaning in itself - the work I do is meaningful or impactful (has values or spiritual or impact alignment), and 3. Work Supports Life outside of work - work as enabler of my purpose outside of my job or work is something I just do because one needs to do it to survive.
I think in this framework #1 is a means to numbers 2 and 3, so this would be more like a flow chart - some people choose to do #1, but some people don't, they jump into #2 or #3 without the need for #1.
Super interesting and thanks for laying out those paths!
From the supply side (for a company trying to engage top talent) the distinction does seem quite important to me been my 1 and 3 group but I get why from the perspective of a job seeker that might be less so. Noodling!
In my experience as a career counselor/coach and leading career development teams, I have found that groups 1 and 3 on your list are in essence the same thing, and I don't know that it's particularly useful to separate them. I think you could simplify this model into three parts: 1. Work as Prototype - using your work to learn something about yourself and what you want to do, or to develop a skill that you think/know you will need to use later. 2. Work as Meaning in itself - the work I do is meaningful or impactful (has values or spiritual or impact alignment), and 3. Work Supports Life outside of work - work as enabler of my purpose outside of my job or work is something I just do because one needs to do it to survive.
I think in this framework #1 is a means to numbers 2 and 3, so this would be more like a flow chart - some people choose to do #1, but some people don't, they jump into #2 or #3 without the need for #1.
Would love to chat more about this any time! :-)
Super interesting and thanks for laying out those paths!
From the supply side (for a company trying to engage top talent) the distinction does seem quite important to me been my 1 and 3 group but I get why from the perspective of a job seeker that might be less so. Noodling!