The Simplest Way to Have a Meaningful Day
Living without meaning makes beasts of us all. Just bury your head in the mud to escape drudgery.
Don’t let environments bully you into exhaustion. Walk through the door dedicated to manage meaningfully.
Managing with meaning turns muddy drudgery into play.
Living with meaning is easier than you might think.

Meaning in three or four words:
Strengths are bearings to anyone who feels adrift.
Write your name on a piece of paper and write beside it your talent, gift, or strength.
(Your name) a (your strength)
- Mary a relationship builder.
- Peter an energizer.
- Betty an influencer.
- Bob a getter-doner.
Functioning within your strength is effortless effort.
You’re like a kid on the floor with a coloring book, tongue out and feet dangling in the air, when you engage in meaningful action.
Working without meaning reduces you to a frantic windmill groaning in a hurricane.
The dignity and energy of managing with meaning:
You might end the day exhausted, but meaningful action results in gratifying fatigue.
Jobs don’t give you meaning. You don’t find meaning at work; you bring meaning to work. A manager who walks through the door drowning in stress and consumed with problems is little more than a beast.
Tips for creating your meaning statement:
- Meaning often hides behind recurring frustrations.
- Impact points to meaning. What positive impact do you frequently provide? Do you aspire to provide?
- Limit your focus to areas of maximum impact. Meaning enables you to set boundaries.
Opportunity:
Don’t be discouraged when others aren’t like you. Perhaps your strength is seeing the big picture and you work with people who just want to get things done.
The things others can’t do gives meaning to things you can do.
How might you live meaningfully today?
How might you help others live meaningfully?
Dan
It took me my whole work and retirement life to decide: Brad was best when solving puzzles.
At work financial and organizational crisis are puzzles. In retirement mentoring or helping others is a different type of puzzle. Even my non for profit work like rewriting building bylaws is a puzzle.
Hopefully others will figure their skill sooner!
Brad
Thank you for sharing that, Brad. I’m 60 and still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up…or what my main contribution really is. Thank you, Dan, for a post that can help me figure it out.