When people think about what makes a job worthwhile, they typically focus on two major dimensions: happiness and meaning. A happy job tends to offer stability, such as good pay, low stress, and pleasant coworkers. A meaningful job brings a sense of purpose, such as helping others or contributing to a cause bigger than yourself. But there’s a third path to fulfillment that’s rarely discussed and yet just as vital: psychological richness.
This kind of richness often emerges from:
- encountering new ideas
- navigating complexity
- feeling deep emotions
- experiencing shifts in perspective, especially during moments that are difficult or unexpected
While a happy job can result in satisfaction, and a meaningful job can drive societal contribution, a psychologically rich job can lead to wisdom.
What Is Psychological Richness at Work?
Happy workdays are generally smooth, and meaningful ones feel purposeful and driven by values. In contrast, psychologically rich days are filled with emotional highs and lows that challenge your assumptions, stretch your thinking, and leave a lasting impression.
These days might include an intense brainstorming session where your team debates fiercely over a creative direction, voices rising and ideas clashing, until someone throws out a wild concept that suddenly unlocks a breakthrough no one expected. Or it might be a difficult but eye-opening conversation with a colleague who tells you they’ve felt excluded in meetings, prompting you to reflect on your behavior and realize the subtle ways team dynamics have been shaped by unconscious habits. Sometimes it’s learning something that changes how you see your colleagues, such as finding out a quiet employee has been holding the team together behind the scenes in ways you never noticed.
Some people spend a great deal of energy curating their own happiness and sense of meaning at work. But work, like life, is unpredictable and doesn’t always feel good. Psychological richness helps us accept and grow through everything that comes with it.
Just like the winding paths of a psychologically rich life, these moments can be:
- tense
- uncomfortable
- embarrassing
But they often stay with you, coloring your sense of self and your career in ways that lasting comfort never could.
Who Brings Richness to Work?
Psychological richness tends to thrive in people who are:
- curious
- open to new experiences
- willing to engage with complexity
These are often the colleagues who ask thoughtful questions, like the team member who pauses a routine project update to ask, “What problem are we really trying to solve here?” or “How would our users describe this experience in their own words?” They try new approaches, perhaps by experimenting with a different workflow to reduce burnout or testing a new tool that shifts how the team collaborates. And they bring fresh perspectives to old problems, for example by turning a persistent budget challenge into a creative constraint that leads to more resourceful solutions.
The focus lies in adopting the mindset of an explorer, even within everyday routines, where learning comes from engaging deeply with what’s already present. This reflects what Dr. Shigehiro Oishi, a professor of psychology and leading authority on psychological richness, has observed: people who are open to experience tend to live richer lives by stepping into new situations and embracing the discomfort that helps them grow.
While a happy job can result in satisfaction, and a meaningful job can drive societal contribution, a psychologically rich job can lead to wisdom.
How to Add Richness to Your Work Life
You don’t have to change jobs or move across the globe to create a more psychologically rich work life. Often, small shifts in perspective or behavior can lead to big changes in how your work feels. For example, you might:
- Say yes to projects that are outside your comfort zone
- Engage in difficult conversations rather than avoid them
- Experiment with humor or creativity even when things feel routine
- Reflect on what challenged you, surprised you, or went well, because taken together these moments help create a richer, more memorable work experience
- Share stories of your missteps, your aha moments, or your failures to help others connect with you on a deeper level and expand their own capacity for reflection and growth
Psychological richness can vary even among people in the same role. One employee may choose to stay within the familiar lines of their job description, while another, faced with the same tasks, approaches the work with curiosity, wonder, and a willingness to change how they see things. What creates the difference is less about the job itself and more about the mindset you bring to it.
Rethinking Career Success
Career success is often judged by external measures such as:
- how much money you make
- how stable your position is
- how prestigious your title sounds
But those measures can overlook something deeply human. Does your work make you feel alive? Does it give you stories worth remembering? Does it stretch your view of the world?
Your job may not feel incredibly happy or fulfilling at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you don’t or can’t have a good life. A psychologically rich career often follows a path that is nonlinear and unconventional. It may involve pivots or detours. But those elements can make your path feel like a lived experience, not just a list of accomplishments.
So the next time you’re evaluating a job opportunity, a new responsibility, or even how you spend your workday, consider asking yourself not just, “Will this make me happy or help others?” but also, “Will this make my life richer, or can I help it become so?” Because the moments that make you think, feel deeply, or shift your perspective are often the ones you’ll carry with you the longest, and they may be the most meaningful of all.
