Whether its a little, a lot, or not at all, knowing that will help you achieve more in your career, while also helping you avoid burnout.
Today I help you find out exactly how much the need for Significance motivates you or doesn't.
If it’s one of your primary drivers, this deeper understanding of Significance will help you pick future careers that you’ll Naturally succeed at, without needing to stress over discipline.
I'll also help you find places you may be overlooking in your current job, that feed the desire for Significance, allowing you to start you succeeding more with less effort, right now
And if find you’re not driven by Significance, you’ll be able to avoid the trap of jobs that many others are telling you are great, and are for them, but you struggle to perform well and would be miserable.
To find how much you are driven by Significance, we’re going to sit with what that desire feels like. Your values are on an emotional level. So we’ll spend a few minutes with that feeling.
First we’ll walk through through a some paragon examples from movies. Stories of victory through the pursuit of Significance.
Maverick - Top Gun
In Top Gun, Maverick was driven by the need for Significance.
He wanted to be the best. But not by himself like a monk. Or anonymously like a Super Hero. Maverick wanted to compete head to head, face to face and win.
In naval flight school, he competed against his fellow classmate aviators. Then finally competed against enemy pilots.
Celebrities get their significance from their widespread fame. And that can work for a few people. But Maverick didn’t need a lot of people to know about him to be significant, he just needed the combat aviators of the world, the experts in his field, to know he was the best.
Significance is the desire to be important. Feel you matter. Often feeling better than others.
Jordan Belfort - Wall Street
In Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort also loved to compete, loved to be in charge, and most of all loved to show the world his success.
Jordan’s field of competition was sales. A war of words. A battle of ideas, emotions, and desire. At the stock firm he loved competing against his objecting clients. Even at the boiler room where he sold penny stocks for far less money, he still loved the head to head fight with his customers.
Even better, every single broker in his office had their progress publicly measured and ranked. He loved competing against his fellow brokers, and winning.
The biggest sign that Jordan was driven by Significance, is when he abandoned his immunity deal with the FBI. With the deal, he’d still have had everything good in his life he had before. His money, his family, his wild lifestyle.
Everything except his Significance. And that was the one thing he couldn’t bear to lose.
Remembering those stories, how do you feel?
How much did they get you excited to fight your competition and win? To have the world know how uniquely strong & skilled you are.
These Hollywood stories are great at giving us perfect, extreme examples of Significant work. But you don't have to go to the extreme lengths of wall street fraud or military combat to get Significance from your work. This need is a gift in many careers, and may be satisfied by tasks that you have at your current job, but you’re missing out on taking advantage of your gift, because you’re overlooking how they connect to significance.
Are there any places at your job where you’re ranked against your coworkers?
Any task where everyone is measured and ranked give significance. One really widespread version of this is sales. From tracking store membership sign ups as a side part of your job to the entire job focus on it like in medical sales, in any job with sales, they will always be measured, ranked and compared against everyone else. This gives you the opportunity to become #1 and show everyone around you that you are the best.
Other competitions:
- Closing the most support tickets
- The most leads generated
- The least amount of waste materials
Or does your job have focused head to head competitions?
A trial lawyer is a great example. There may not be a leader board, but in a court room, every day it is you against the opposing lawyer. Two battling for one outcome. A fight to win. Significance for the victor..
Other unexpected sources of significance at work you may be overlooking include:
High profile presenting
Politicians do this full time. But at your job are there times when someone is needed to present summaries to the rest of the team? A task many people fear more than death. If you train your presenting skills at all, you’d probably become the only one in your department who ever had, and have everyone see you present it better anyone else could?
Finally, are there any places at work where you mentor junior members?
If you train others, you are seen as the best. You’re looked up to. If you have any of this in your work, you could be overlooking just how much significance this gives you. Becoming aware of it will let you enjoy that satisfaction, and tapping into your desire to be the best will make you perform it better & gain even more respect for it.
Now after your deep dive with Significance, how much do you feel it drives you?
Do you see any places at your current work that give you Significance?
Thinking about it now, do they motivate you more?
If you connect with significance, the more pay attention to this, the stronger this feeling will increase edge it gives you.
You can also gain similar benefits for any of the 6 needs you connect with. So you’ll want to learn how much you connect with the rest of them too. Personally I connect strongly with 3.
And If you’ve realized you don’t care about significance, that is powerful knowledge too.
You now know how to recognize them, and know that for you, they would be a miserable trap. You can save yourself and your career years by finding a job that satisfies one of the other 6 needs that you do connect with.
If learning how much you’re driven Significance helped you, you won’t want to miss out on the benefits of knowing how much you connect with all 6 of them. Pick the next one that interests you and keep going.
Or jump straight to
Growth because it’s my favorite, and the Matrix is freaking cool.
