Background: Occupational narratives are used to analyse meaning in our everyday meaningful occupations. In the form of digital stories, narratives can illuminate meaning and demonstrate the diversity in our everyday lives. This study is the first study using digital stories provided for the World Federation of Occupational Therapists Occupational Narratives Database project.

Aim: The purpose of this study is to illuminate meaning in the lives of five people through their occupational narratives

Material and Method: Five, four minute occupational narrative digital stories demonstrating different meaningful occupations were analysed using a qualitative inductive content analysis approach, analysing both manifest and latent data. 

Results: Five themes were generated. These themes reflected categories around identity, doing, being, belonging and becoming and illuminated how meaning in occupation is dependent on a multi-layered construct of the individual, their environment and other people. 

Conclusion:The results illuminated meaning in the lives of five people and their occupational narratives, generating 5 themes. These themes reflected current thinking in occupational therapy literature around meaning in occupation. Examples of meaning in occupation related to identity, the importance of place and people and doing, being, belonging and becoming were illuminated.