How to Make Your Work More Meaningful and Impactful
Nkiru Olumide-Ojo (Ph.D)
Impact Story Teller I Capacity Builder I Social Impact I Founder the LightHouseNetwork I Head Africa Regions & Offshore - Marketing, Communications & CSI @Standard Bank Group
Have you ever felt stuck in your career? Do you long for a sense of fulfilment in your everyday work? Do you wish to give more value?
With more conversations centred on purpose and impact, it’s important to talk about the ‘how’. Here are three ways to make your work more meaningful and impactful:
1. Find your calling
We all have our innate talents, as well as our personal interests and aspirations. One way to give more meaning to your work and make more impact is by seeing your work as more than just a job. You have to find your purpose within that work and do your best to walk in it. This means doing your best with what you have, by using your skills and experience to help solve problems, even if you aren’t asked to.
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2. Focus on quality instead of quantity
In our pursuit of doing our best, it’s possible to get lost chasing huge numbers. For instance, you might say ‘I want to increase results by X%’ or ‘I want to change the lives of X number of people.’ It’s good to set goals and aim high, but make sure you don’t get fixated so much on the quantity of your achievements, that you forget about quality. It’s better to focus on 10 people who then impact 10,000 lives, than overstretch yourself in trying to help everyone and ending up not really creating any impact.
3. Don’t neglect yourself
When we set out to bring out the best in others and give back, it’s important that we don’t forget about our own growth and wellbeing. Make sure that you are also putting yourself on your ‘to-do list’. In all you do, keep working on yourself, stick to your boundaries, and practice self-care. When you prioritise yourself, you are able to give your best. However, if you don’t and get burnt out, you won’t really be able to give as much as you wish to.
Overall, it’s important that you find balance in your work, from being intentional about adding value with your job, to measuring your impact in terms of quality, not quantity, to prioritising your personal growth and wellbeing.
Human Resource Professional||Corporate Compere||CV writing and review|| Helping individuals navigate career growth, achieve business objectives through human capital and delivering excellence in corporate events.
1yThank you ma for this. What caught my interest was that we should not overstretch ourselves in trying to help everyone and not create any impact. Our focus should be on quality rather than quantity and also the need to prioritize ourselves, growth, and self-care. This is a great piece. Thank you for sharing
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1yLove this Nkiru Olumide-Ojo Focusing on quality got my attention. That's why I focus on creating quality content more than quantity