If you’ve taken the Meaningful Work Inventory and purchased your report (or if you’re considering doing so!) you may have come across the concept of “tensions” as they relate to your worklife. If you’ve ever wondered about this word, look no further! While “tensions” might have a less-than-positive connotation elsewhere, your Inventory report uses this term to describe the daily push-and-pull between necessary yet opposite forces in our worklives. When we work to balance the external demand for productivity with our internal needs for rest and renewal, we are navigating tensions.
In this piece, we unpack three key tensions at play in your worklife, and share how learning to identify and navigate each one can allow us to experience greater meaning each day.
When you hear the word “tensions” in relation to work, what pops into your head? Awkward silence after the boss’s “inspirational” speech? The discovery of a sandwich thief at large in the breakroom? Well, put those associations out of your mind. We’re going to explore a totally different—and more positive!—type of work tension, one that just might be the key to enjoying a more meaningful worklife.
The “tensions” we like to talk about at MeaningSphere describe that push-and-pull, that dance between necessary yet opposite forces in our worklives. These tensions exist between work and rest, between yourself and others, and between your ambitions and your realities. Once we recognize and appreciate these tensions for what they are, we can start to consciously navigate them. In doing so, we can create a more sustainable, compassionate, and meaningful worklife.
Tensions and the Map of Meaning
If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll likely have heard about the Map of Meaning. Developed by Dr. Marjolein Lips-Wiersma, a leading scholar in the field of meaningful work, the Map of Meaning is the groundbreaking framework that underpins the Meaningful Work Inventory, the self-assessment tool we offer. Based on decades of research, the Map identifies four key areas, or “pathways,” through which human beings find meaning. These are:
Our need to connect with others (Unity with Others)
Our need to contribute to the good of others (Service to Others)
Our need to harness our strengths and abilities (Expressing Full Potential), and
Our need to be in tune with ourselves (Integrity with Self)
These four pathways are interdependent: Too much focus on Unity with Others, for example—on fitting in with our peers and being part of a group—could diminish the attention paid to Integrity with Self—the sense that we are acting in alignment with our values.
This is where the helpful kind of tensions come into play. When we speak up in a meeting to point out the potentially harmful impacts of a proposed plan everyone else seems to support, we are endeavoring to strike a balance between Unity with Others and Integrity with Self. The tensions between Self and Others and between Being and Doing are the two central tensions at play in meaningful work. On the Map, these tensions form a kind of axis, neatly dividing the four pathways.
Finally, the Map also acknowledges a third, overarching tension: between Inspiration (placed at the center) and Reality of Self and Circumstances (visualized as a circle inscribing the rest of the Map’s contents).
“Balancing the tensions strengthens our sense of meaningfulness,” explains Lilian Kolker, one of our MeaningSphere Guides trained in the Map of Meaning framework. “A check-in of whether your work lets you experience all pathways to meaningful work is essential for feeling fulfillment about what you do. The more people can sense this around you at work, the more beneficial it is, for the team and the organization.”
Tensions may be uncomfortable, but they are a necessary part of a meaningful worklife. In working to navigate them, we can reach that “sweet spot” where all four areas of the Map feel balanced. So rather than viewing them as inherently negative or as a problem to be solved, consider the following three tensions as a healthy part of your journey toward a more balanced, meaningful worklife.
Unlike a problem, a tension is not meant to be solved so much as managed. Noticing and identifying tensions for what they are can help us start to worry about them less, and work with them more.
Being and Doing
A meaningful worklife requires a balance between rest and activity. When we rest, we have space to reflect in a way that clarifies our thoughts and can even lead to new breakthroughs at work. MeaningSphere Guide Lilian Kolker puts it this way:
“Last week, I was so busy, and my days were packed with meetings and activities to create new services. And I love doing that; it energizes me. But in the back of my mind, a little voice also tells me I must deal with a situation. Something is going on that impacts how I work, and I want to form an opinion about how I want to deal with this. That requires quiet time; I need to sit down and think it all through to clarify my ideas. Yet, I didn't make the time; I enjoyed myself with the fun stuff. I kept telling myself if I finalized activities quickly, things would quiet down. Of course, that didn't happen. The stuff that needs attention doesn't disappear.
I ended up feeling the tension between 'doing and being.’ I feel good about all the action, but that thing still bothering me won't go away. This tension is a common and recurring theme at work and has different manifestations. It's hard to take the time to look within, to reflect and think, while you keep running to create or achieve something for the outside world.”
This example also demonstrates another key tension from the Map: the one between Self and Others.
Self and Others
A meaningful worklife is one in which we can strike a balance between our need to look after ourselves, pursue our goals, and develop ourselves personally and professionally, and our desire to help others, have meaningful friendships, and be part of a community.
In Lilian’s example, “The quiet time I needed was meant for inward-looking, to reflect and decide what's important to me,” she says. “However, what I prioritized was enjoying working with my colleagues and lending them a hand to create something together. I didn't express [that] I needed some me-time.”
On the Map, this tension is at play between the two inward-focused pathways (Integrity with Self, Expressing Full Potential) and two outward-focused ones (Unity with Others, Service to Others).
“People have a built-in radar for a loss of meaning. These are moments when alarm bells go off. That's when we ask ourselves, ‘What's the point?’ or ‘Why bother?’ We can use those signs to do some inward reflection and find out what's going on for us.” —Lilian Kolker, MeaningSphere Guide
Inspiration and Reality
A third, overarching tension between Inspiration and the Reality of Self and Circumstances allows us to dream big while keeping us grounded in what’s possible. On the Map, it's this tension that holds everything else together.
“Here, we talk about the bigger realm where meaningfulness takes place,” says MeaningSphere Guide Lilian of this third tension. “Inspiration is felt when we feel aligned with our ideals and hopes for the future. What inspires people can be something they strive for or [something that] energizes us, like a vision or purpose.”
We can easily become disillusioned when the gap between this inspiration and reality is too big. We may get carried away imagining the impact we want to have on the world or the glamorous career we want to lead, for example, without properly considering the obstacles and limitations in our way. It might be my dream, for example, to become a prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet, but unless I’ve been training rigorously since childhood (I haven’t), this dream is probably not well matched to the realities of myself and my circumstances. The gap is too big.
“While pursuing what we strive for, we find ourselves in our day-to-day circumstances,” says Lilian. “Our reality at work is often less ideal than we envision; we have to deal with all kinds of practicalities.”
By the same token, however, it’s important not to focus so much on being “realistic” that we forget to take chances and try new things in the pursuit of our dreams: As a sedentary writer, I may never become a prima ballerina, but perhaps an ambitious new literary project is not unrealistic for me.
Rethinking tensions for a more meaningful worklife
Tensions can be uncomfortable. In our decision-making, they often present themselves between two opposing choices that each have positive angles—but we can choose only one. When we have set aside the afternoon to focus on some deep work, only to have a friend text us with a last-minute plea to help them move house, we may experience the tension between self and others. When we make it through the work week only to spend a Sunday feeling restless and worried about whether we are properly maximizing our free time, we are experiencing a tension between being and doing. Unlike a problem, however, a tension is not meant to be solved so much as managed. Noticing and identifying tensions for what they are can help us start to worry about them less, and work with them more.
“We sometimes treat our needs as an either/or dilemma at play and favor one over the other,” says Lilian. “Yet, all four [pathways] are essential, and we must find a way to balance these. When we find a way to harmonize these needs, we might feel okay, at peace, or even highly successful. However, when a need is unmet or neglected in favor of the other, we experience a loss; our sense of meaning is detracted.”
She continues, “People have something like a built-in radar for a loss of meaning. These are moments when alarm bells go off. That's when we ask ourselves, ‘I don't get this,’ or ‘What's the point?’ or ‘Why bother?’ While those moments do not provide us with a feeling of fulfillment, we can use those signs to do some inward reflection and find out what's going on for us.”
Sometimes, Lilian adds, it can be hard for us to do this kind of reflection on our own. It’s not always easy to recognize the tensions at play in our worklives and identify the roles we and others play in both creating and handling these tensions. Enter the MeaningSphere Guides: professionals like Lilian who are trained in the Map of Meaning framework and are available to meet with individuals in one-on-one virtual sessions called Guided Discussions. Over the course of an hour, the Guide can help you identify areas of misalignment in your worklife—as highlighted in your Meaningful Work Inventory Report—and come up with an action plan you can put into practice right away. (Interested? You can get started by taking the Inventory here.)
Whether we’re aware of them or not, tensions are a part of life and can have a profound effect on our ability to experience meaning at work. By naming them, accepting them, and flexibly adapting to them where we can, we are better positioned to experience a meaningful worklife.
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