Aligning working in an organization with teaching yoga: An investigation into personally meaningful work

Abstract

In many advanced economies, two phenomena coexist: many people struggle finding meaning in their jobs and a growing number of persons hold multiple jobs at the same time. The research stream on meaningful work calls for more qualitative studies that investigate individual experiences of meaningful work across different jobs. The field on multiple jobholding has recently focused on the psychological foundations and struggles or positive effects. Prior research shows that individuals who were pushed (e.g. by financial reasons) into an additional job will likely experience depletion through it, while those motivated by pull factors (e.g. by psychological fulfillment reasons and the desire for meaningfulness) will likely yield enrichment. To address these research gaps jointly, we empirically investigate the motivations and meaningfulness experiences of multiple jobholders with the same secondary job, that is, practicing yoga teachers. We apply a mixed-method design by conducting and analyzing narrative interviews with 27 part-time yoga teachers in Germany.