How to Find Purpose in a Job That Feels Pointless

Do you ever wake up, go to work, grind through the day, and wonder… what’s the point of all this?
 You’re not alone. Every man eventually wrestles with how to find purpose in work that feels meaningless or lifeless.
In this episode of the Manhood Tribe Show, Don unpacks why so many men lose a sense of calling in their jobs — and how to rediscover purpose even in the most ordinary work.
You’ll learn how to:
 • Reframe your daily grind for deeper purpose
 • Apply the Five Marks of Manhood in your career
 • Shift your attitude toward strength, courage, skill, honor, and allegiance — even when the job itself doesn’t change

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Question for You
 What’s one way you bring purpose into your work, even when it feels lifeless? Drop your thoughts in the comments — your insight could help another man find meaning again.

⏰ TIMECODES
 00:00 The Daily Grind: Finding Meaning in Work
 01:37 The Importance of Work in Men's Lives
 02:50 The Consequences of Meaningless Work
 04:18 Identifying the Problems in Your Job
 11:16 Reframing Your Work for Greater Purpose
 14:01 Applying the Five Marks of Manhood at Work
 22:01 When Attitude Shifts Aren’t Enough
 23:14 Becoming a Man of Purpose

HASHTAGS
 #ManhoodTribes #MensPurpose #FaithAndWork #Masculinity #ManhoodJourney

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Transcript

Don Ross: 0:00

Men, do you know the feeling of having to wake up, go to work, grind your way through a day that isn't fun, and isn't life giving? Clock out. Come home, eat dinner, go to bed, realizing you're gonna have to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again. Yeah, I think we all know that feeling to one extent or another, we all have things about our jobs that make us dread the next day because we just feel like things are missing from the work that we do. And so all of us as men can kind of relate to this question of how do I find meaning and purpose in my work? When it just feels hollow and boring and lifeless. I want us to talk about that today here on the Manhood Tribe Show, because I think this is a topic that all men wrestle with from time, from one time to another. But I think that some of us are particularly wrestling with that and may have been wrestling with it for a long time, and it's led us into kind of a downward spiral of really not knowing how to enjoy our work and to be able to find meaning and purpose in life. So we're gonna dive into that today. My name's Don. I'm really glad that you're joining us here on The Manhood Tribe Show. Whether this is your first time or you're a longtime watcher or listener, uh, this is a really good place to be and a good community of men to be a part of. What we're trying to do here at Manhood Tribes is to help each other really get a clear vision of what it means to be a man, and then to also build. A life-changing community of men around us so that we can become the kind of men that we absolutely do want to be. And right now, we're in the middle of this series where we're talking about men and work, because for us as men in particular, work plays a really big part of our lives. Most men work at least 40 hours a week, and it takes up probably about half of our waking hours every week. That's a crazy amount of time to really think about. We spend more time with our work than we do just about anything. Even our family. Sometimes we have more time spent at work because family time is also occupied by a whole bunch of other things as well. Work gets the most of our attention and our time throughout the week, so figuring out how to. Work well and to have a good relationship with our work is really important for us As men. We are meant to work. We are meant to give ourselves to something that is valuable and meaningful, and yet for a lot of us, work just feels like this big checklist of things that we have to get done for the sake of just earning a paycheck. But it's not anything that we actually look forward to or even want to do. So we need to talk about that today. How do we find meaning and purpose in a role where we feel unfulfilled and uninspired? So let's be honest about some things First, work without meaning will wear a man down. Okay. We just need to own up to the reality of the picture. We are meant to find meaning in our work. Work was always meant to be something that is purposeful and challenging in the right ways for us, that helps us become better at who we are and is something that we actually enjoy doing. Now, that doesn't mean that it isn't going to be hard. That doesn't mean that we're not gonna. Encounter frustrations or obstacles, but for the most part, we are meant to experience meaning and purpose and joy in our work. And when we're not experiencing that, it really can wear us down. You are not in the wrong because you're feeling worn down by a job that doesn't have meaning and purpose to it. Okay? So don't, don't beat yourself up that maybe you're feeling like, ah, there's really something wrong with me as a man that I can't seem to kind of get this whole Work thing together. I just kind of can't get my act together when it comes to enjoying my job or finding purpose when everybody else seems to just be able to kind of like go along to get along and be content with the paycheck. And you know, maybe for you it just isn't working that way. And I just wanna say that's okay. You're meant to have meaning and purpose in your work. And if you're feeling like you don't have that, then something needs to change. And we need to talk today about what are the things that actually do need to change. Because when you're left with, without that kind of sense of meaning in your work, what tends to take the place is some really negative things and you go from having a negative experience with your work to really kind of spiraling even further downwards into not being able to see the positives in any place in life. Because work is really sort of like ruining or tainting everything about the way that you see and experience the life around you. If you're starting to feel like you're just a cog in someone's machine, then it probably is an indication that you've drifted more into that, like despair or negativity or cynicism that is really kind of pushing you in a direction that's really unhealthy. Maybe you just kind of feel like you are having to do a lot of tasks that don't actually use your strengths, that your job is just a mismatch with the things that you actually care about and enjoy or are good at and would like to be giving more time to. That can be a problem for a lot of us. Sometimes the things that we enjoy, we kind of know aren't necessarily going to be full-time. You know, revenue earning types of jobs. They're not gonna support us or our family in the way that we want to. And so we have to kind of figure out how do we balance that? Do we want to sacrifice some income for the sake of pursuing something that might bring us more joy? Or are we content to say, Nope, I'm gonna make my income over here, but pursue this other joy as a hobby in some way, shape, or form. Uh, it's hard to make those calls, but if you constantly feel like you've got strengths to be able to offer and you're not getting a chance to do that, then of course you're gonna develop some resentment, not just towards your job, but towards your life in general. And that's where things can really continue to just get worse. You might also just kind of be asking the question, am I wasting my life on something? That doesn't matter, right? Maybe you feel like your job is just pointless. Maybe you feel like it doesn't serve any kind of greater good. It's not actually benefiting anybody, or in whatever ways it is benefiting other people. It feels very like. Shallow or empty. Maybe it's just about lining other people's pockets. Maybe it's about lining the pockets of people who you don't like or don't respect. And so in a lot of ways it can start to feel like what I'm doing really doesn't matter, or in the ways that it does matter to some people. I don't actually like. I don't like how it matters. I don't feel like the way that it matters is contributing to something that I want to contribute to. Now, there's some real sense of mismatch there, but again, if you allow yourself to kind of stay in that place of mismatch, it goes from just frustration to outright bitterness, despair, and cynicism. And those are kind of the red flags when you can start to notice, okay, something has really gone wrong here. I need to start to figure out how to make some changes in order to be able to get to that place. But look, if you are in that kind of place, I want to be honest that again, that's kind of a normal thing. Men experience those feelings in just about any kind of job. I've experienced those feelings even in my own jobs. And you guys might be listening and thinking, well, haven't you been in ministry? Like having you worked for churches? Like how could you experience those kinds of feelings working for a church? Like you're doing some of the most meaningful work that there is. And let me say, I guarantee you that all of those feelings can be possible, even working at a church as someplace that seems as meaningful and purposeful as that. And that's because humans are humans. And so even though the work might seem like it has some inherent value, the way that we treat each other and the way that we design the work to be done can get to that place where it does feel like you're just a cog in a machine. I remember working at one church in particular where it kind of felt like even though we were trying to do good work and help people understand spiritual truths and come to having a relationship with God, the way that we were doing that was really by kind of like creating a show that platformed one individual in particular and everybody else's responsibilities were built around kind of. Building that one person up and elevating their platform. Now over time, that can really start to feel like, is this actually what I want to give myself to do? I respect that person enough, that I just want to be about building them up and making their light shine brighter. Maybe not. And at the end of the day, if that's all that I am is just a cog in that person's machine, then what's the value in what I'm doing? Does anybody even see what I'm doing? So yeah, it's possible even at a church, even in the places where the work feels like it's the most meaningful, you might work in healthcare or you might work in education or in some other place that feels like, yeah, you're doing something really meaningful that contributes to the good and the value of society. At the end of the day, if the way that you're having to go about that work or the boss that you're having to work under isn't good, isn't fair, isn't kind in the way that they handle things, then yeah, it can still make your work feel miserable or hollow or shallow. So don't ignore the feelings. Don't pretend like it's just you or you just need to get over it. Those are things that are important to pay attention to. God might actually be moving in you in those very feelings as a way to be able to say, I have something different. I have something better. Or he might be trying to say, Hey, I see some things in you that need addressing in order for you to be able to enjoy the work that I've given you to do. Okay, so that's what I want to talk about. Now, there's some things that we can change about our work, and if you're in a place where the work is just meaningless and unsatisfactory and boring, and you're just kind of ready for a change, don't be afraid to explore a change. That's all right. But sometimes the change that needs to take place is actually the change that needs to occur in you. It might not be that your work is actually all that meaningless and purposeless. It might be that you've been frustrated for so long that you're really having a hard time being able to be the kind of man who can find meaning and purpose in his work. And so even if you did move on to another job, that was a place where there was meaning and purpose built into the work that you're doing. You still might have a hard time finding that meaning and purpose because you've become the kind of man who is always cynical, who's always looking for the things that aren't working well, who's always critical of others, and your spirit has kind of soured in a way that it makes it difficult for you to find and enjoy meaningful work. Okay, so if that's the case, then let's talk about what you can do to really be able to grow into the kind of man that you need to be to experience that meaning and purpose in your work. The first thing that I think you should do is really try to reframe your work. It's always good to ask the question, who does this actually serve? Who is benefiting from the work that I'm doing and helping yourself to be able to keep that person or those groups of people top of mind as you're doing your work, can really help you to be able to remember the meaning and the purpose that is baked into the work that you do. Almost all jobs, unless they're just things that are like overtly illegal or sinful or harmful in some way. Almost all jobs have some kind of meaning and purpose built into them. And so if you can look at it from the angle of who am I serving, what am I doing, and how does it serve others, you can start to really find a place where it does bring meaning and purpose to your work. For example, the work that I'm doing right now is in digital marketing. I help run digital ad campaigns for a lot of different companies, some big, some small across the country. Now, on a day-to-day basis, some of that work can get really tedious. It involves spreadsheets and numbers and ad performance and campaign builds, and sometimes it involves cranky clients and disrespectful clients and all kinds of other things. And so there are days when that it, it can just sort of feel like, Ugh, do I have to do this all over again? But when I remind myself that what I'm doing is actually helping to generate business, especially for small businesses, where this becomes somebody's livelihood, that the better that I do at advertising their product, the more successful that they can be. The better that they can provide for their families and the more that they can actually find room to be able to breathe and enjoy life because of the work that I'm doing, then okay, now I can start to see the picture of, all right, sure. Maybe it does kind of come down to like spreadsheets and numbers and tedious tasks, but at the end of the day, all of those things add up to helping someone's life be better. Because I'm furthering their business and their objectives, and that is a really good thing. That is how humans flourish, and I'm contributing to the flourishing of other people and other businesses in a way that does matter. It does actually help me shift my focus and to be able to say, okay. I can grind through another day of this because I know that what I'm doing today is gonna make a real difference in someone's life tomorrow or next month or next year. And so all of that is good. Just simply reframing my work in light of who I'm serving can really make a big difference. Now another thing that you can do is actually to lean on what we talk a lot about here at Manhood Tribes, which is the five marks of manhood. It's good to just evaluate your work in light of how you're showing up in each of those five areas. So let's talk about them. Strength, for example. Strength, depending on the job that you have, might seem like the oddest one to bring to your work. You might be like me, where you sit at a desk all day in front of a computer screen and it can kind of feel like. What on earth do I need physical strength for? But here's the thing, if I am not maintaining physical strength in my body, then I bring a body that is already worn down to a job that sometimes can feel like it's trying to wear me down. And if I'm letting both my job and my attitude towards strength be something that wears me down, I, I'm killing myself with a double edged sword, right? So I've got to be intentional to work on my physical strength. On my stamina, on my overall health so that I have the, the body, the endurance, the capacity to actually be able to do my work well, and even throughout the day, I need to take breaks where I get up and just move around physically so that I, I don't feel chained to a chair or to a computer screen where all I'm using is my fingers and my eyeballs and my brain, but I'm not actually using much of my body or my strength in any way. If I can bring my strength back into it, then. My whole body feels refreshed to be able to do the work that I need to do. So value your strength as a part of whatever work you're doing, even if it isn't physical or manual labor. Your strength is still important to your work. How about courage? Courage is needed all the time in our jobs. Are you the man who is having the courage to be able to stand up for the things that needs standing up for in your workplace? Are you having the courage to have a difficult conversation with your boss or to bring up a difficult topic with your team? To call out some of the things that need to be improved. Are you the one who's showing up for those kinds of things or are you backing off in hopes that someone else will be able to do that? Because hey, maybe they're gonna take some heat if that gets brought up. And I don't wanna be the one to have to take the heat. Okay. Well, that's a little bit of kind of a cowardly approach to your workplace. Don't approach work cowardly approach, work with courage. Be the kind of man who shows up with courage. That doesn't mean you have to pick a fight every day at work, but it does mean that if you want your work to have meaning and purpose, you need to address some of the ways that are inhibiting that you need to speak up for the things that might need changing in order to make your work feel like it does have more meaning and purpose, and that you're getting more joy out of it. Skill. Are you working hard to improve your craft or are you just kind of like rolling along this year the same way that you did last year? Are you trying to get better at your job? If not, then you're really neglecting that aspect of manhood that we call skill. The way in which you should be a lifelong learner who is constantly trying to improve himself at the. Things that he does. This is especially true in your work, and especially true for guys who maybe have been in the same job for a while or at the same company for a long time. It can be kind of easy to just start to coast, like, I've done this for years. I know what I'm doing. I can kind of just show up, you know, phone it in a little bit and get it done and not really have to think about it too much. Well, that's one approach, but I can guarantee you that that approach leads to not feeling like you have much meaning and purpose in your work. So try to apply the mark of manhood of skill. See if you can grow and advance in something that you're doing for your job. Even if your boss isn't asking you to do it, even if it's not required, it's gonna mean that you're gonna have to go above and beyond a little bit. But by pushing yourself in that way. You might find something that you enjoy a little bit more and even a better way to do your work, or that you're doing your work better and that you start to get more satisfaction out of it. In that way, honor, honor is about doing right by your peers, uh, by the people that are closest to you and around you on a regular basis. And so what I wanna ask you is, are you the man who is doing right by your coworkers, even if they're not doing right by you? Okay. You might be in a tough situation where you don't really like or enjoy the people that you work with, and man, that can be really, really hard when the work actually feels like something that you might enjoy doing, but the people that you work with are the worst, then yeah, showing up to work feels really, really tough. That might even be an indication that maybe you need a different place to work, but it could also be an indication that you need to adjust some things about your own attitude. Try really sticking to it for at least a week, and I would encourage you, maybe even for a whole month, how can you go out of your way to serve your coworkers, to help out When somebody seems overwhelmed or overloaded, you be the guy who can kind of help pick up the slack on the team and to do it with a positive attitude. Not one that says, Ugh, I can't believe they're making me do all this extra work. But one who says, Hey. I'm happy to contribute. I'm happy to help out. All of us need a little extra hand, uh, at times, and so I'm happy to be the guy that can lend mine right now. Be the guy who does right by his coworkers. Pay attention to the things that are affecting your coworkers. How can you be a listening ear and a supportive personality if those things are your strength? Let the people around you know that you care. That's a great way to honor your coworkers and help them feel like they've got a space where they are seen and understood and appreciated. There's all kinds of way that you can practice honor in your workplace, even if no one else is practicing it. Who knows, you might even raise the standard in a way that invites other people to want to do the same, and all of a sudden you become a culture creator. You become the guy who actually makes your workplace someplace that people enjoy working. And all it took was you just prioritizing honor a little bit. All right, the last one is allegiance. Now remember that you do have an allegiance to your boss, but your ultimate allegiance is to God, and so do what you can to show your allegiance to your boss. Make sure your boss knows that they, they. Make sure your boss kn knows that you have their back, that you're gonna do the best that you can to serve them, to accomplish their objectives, to push for the things that they want to push for, and to do everything you can to be on their team. All right? You do work for your boss, so be supportive of your boss, and you may be surprised how that affects your boss's attitude towards you. But at the end of the day, what can really help in the area of allegiance is just remembering that in all that you do, you work for the Lord. Take every activity that you do throughout the day and think about how you could do it as if Jesus were standing right next to you, you know, wanting to see how well you performed at it. Now you can take that in a way that might sound a little bit like judgmental or kind of like shaming or you know, even like persnickety or perfectionist. Don't take it any of those ways at all. Jesus isn't like that, but the way that he is is that he values the work that you do because it's work he's given you to do. And so imagine that he's right there with you, championing you along, wanting you to be able to not only do your work well, but to succeed in it and to help others succeed in it so that it can be of benefit to everyone. Having that kind of attitude will help you to show allegiance and to really be able to find some more meaning and purpose in your work. Okay, so we've gone through all of those five marks. Hopefully those are things that can really help you be able to shift your attitude and maybe to be able to find some meaning and purpose in your work that you kind of lost sight of because you were looking at things the wrong way. Now, I do want to say that for some of you, I know that even those kinds of attitude shifts just aren't going to be enough either. Your workplace is just so rotten and so difficult. There's kind of no getting out of that environment. Or you may have been dealing with this kind of resentment for so long now that it's affected you in some ways that you're not sure you can come back from, maybe you've gotten fired or laid off a couple times because of the way that you work with others. Maybe you're just in a particular situation where it just kind of feels like you're making an income that you can't let go of, but it's in a job that you. Absolutely hate, and you just feel stuck. You feel like you have gotten to the bottom of a pit that you have no idea how to get out of. If that resonates with you, then I want to offer to you what I call victorious man coaching. This is my coaching experience that I do. One-on-one and in group settings where I try to help men who feel like they're fighting a battle that they don't know how to overcome. And if that feels like where you're dealing with your work environment, then I would love for you to email me at info@manhoodtribes.com and just say, Hey, I could use some help. Tell me more about coaching, and I would love to talk to you more about that. All right. Now I want to kind of begin to wrap things up by talking about what our work really can look like when we start to make some of those adjustments and begin to find that meaning and purpose that we really have been looking for. When that starts to happen, even your ordinary. Sometimes mundane, sometimes tedious or boring kind of job can start to take on real life. It can start to feel like, oh, there's something good here for me. I actually am contributing to the good of the world, or maybe even just the good of my neighbors, or the good of my community, or the good of a handful of people. I am making a difference in their lives. And because of that. There is meaning to what? That I, to what I'm doing. You might be able to just show up in more of the five marks of manhood and realize, Hey, I'm finding meaning in the fact that through this work, this is providing me opportunities to grow and get better. As a man, this is allowing me to come to become better at who I want to be because it gives me all these opportunities to practice these five marks of manhood. Work is actually a place where you can grow and get better. Instead of seeing all of the challenges in front of you as just frustrations and obstacles that you don't know how to and really don't want to overcome, you can start to see them as manhood challenges. You see them as ways to be able to go. I don't really know how to deal with that right now, but I want to figure it out and I want to get some help from some other guys who can help me figure it out, and I want to become the kind of man who can confront that challenge and overcome it in a way that not only gives me a positive attitude, but helps me to find the meaning and the purpose that I'm looking for in my work. Over time, you become the kind of man who carries purpose with him. And I think really this is the ultimate goal. When you start to be the kind of man who finds purpose, no matter where you are, then you become indispensable. You become a man that. Everybody wants to have on their team. Instead of being the man who's looking for the workplace to provide you with purpose, you show up knowing that you have purpose no matter what the situation is. And because you can bring that to the table, everybody wants to have you at their table. And so when a new opportunity arises or a promotion becomes available, or a new job that you really want. Opens up, then you are ready to be the man who can step into that. Maybe you don't get the opportunity right away, but you will eventually because you will be the kind of man that other people will want to have in that sort of a role. You have learned how to be a man of purpose. Even if there's not a lot of purpose baked into what's going on around you, you will bring it with you and you will elevate others around you as well. All right, man. I hope this has been of some help to you, of some value to you, and I hope it has painted a positive vision for you of what it can look like to be a man of vision and purpose. I would love for you to put a comment, uh, in the comment section down below, just letting us know what's one way that you try to show up with purpose to your work, and maybe your comment can help out somebody else who's really kind of wrestling right now with like, I don't. Know that I know how to do that very well. So put something down there that, uh, could help other guys out in being able to find some purpose and some meaning in their work. All right. I hope you guys are enjoying this series. I'm really enjoying doing it with you, and I look forward to seeing you again next time right here on the Manhood Tribe Show. We'll see you then. I.