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Happy Hour is 9 to 5

Learn How To Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work

By Chief Happiness Officer Alexander Kjerulf

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Why happiness at work matters

Patricia, an outgoing, engaging, perpetually smiling woman in her early 30s with a shock of unruly, prematurely grey hair, was thrilled to get her first management job. She’d been a secretary, back-office worker and all-round administrative worker previously, but as purchasing manager for a major producer of food additives she looked forward to really streamlining their purchasing procedures.

The hiring had gone smoothly. The company needed the position filled quickly and a former colleague of Patricia who now worked there had recommended her. Everything looked great. Nice offices in a woodland setting: Check! Interesting responsibilities: Check! Nice colleagues: Check! A good salary: Absolutely!

But as Patricia started on her new job, things turned out to be less than idyllic. The mood at the company was very much one of competition rather than collaboration. Her immediate manager was rarely there, and never appreciated or even commented upon the work she or her colleagues did. In fact, nobody seemed to care what anybody else did, it was a case of “You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

She was doing her job, and doing it very well, but she got no recognition. Although she tried to change the mood in her department it was very difficult for the latest newcomer to change old, established ways and cultures.

As the months passed by, Patricia started to look forward to each workday less and less. It became a struggle to get out the door in the morning. She lost a lot of energy outside work. She found herself exercising less. She went out less and watched TV more.

After 7 months on the job, Patricia decided to quit. She hadn’t found a new job, she simply went in and quit.

Immediately, the people close to Patricia noticed a difference: Where before she had been tired and sad, she was now happy, silly, energetic. Every day that passed after her decision to quit brought her back to herself in huge steps.

What surprised Patricia, and scared her more than a little, was that she hadn’t noticed how her job had really affected her, because that change had come very gradually over the span of months. But after her decision to quit she took the journey back to her happy self in a couple of weeks, and suddenly it became clear just how badly that unpleasant work environment had affected her both on and off the job.

Patricia used her rediscovered energy to get a new education and is now a full-time fitness professional. Her new job makes her incredibly happy and her new workplace insists she’s the “best thing that ever happened to us.” Patricia has vowed never to take another job that won’t make her happy.

Why does happiness at work matter? Does it matter at all, or could we all just go to work, be unhappy, get our paychecks and be happy in our free time?

The answer is clear: Not only does happiness at work matter, it is the major force that determines whether a person or a business will be successful. I know this from personal experience.

When I got my first consulting job I worked very hard. I was the picture-perfect, traditional IT consultant working many overtime hours in the name of success. I’d moved to a new city for that job, far away from my friends and family, but that was fine: I didn’t really have time for anything outside of work anyway. Basically, I only focused on success at work.

After a year I suddenly realized something. I was successful, certainly, and I made good money—but I was also lonely and unhappy because all I ever did was work. I thought about that for a while, and decided to change my life, to always work in a way that would make me happy. I cut back on work and started spending time exercising and making friends in my new hometown.

Over the course of a year, my life transformed completely. Before, my evenings consisted of the drive home from work, some fast food and lots of TV. Now I had new friends, interesting hobbies, and I was in the best shape of my life from all the exercise.

Happiness at work is not a luxury. It should not be your fifth priority after a good salary, a fancy title, a corner office and the key to the executive bathroom. Happiness is more important than anything else for determining your enjoyment of your work, your quality of life outside of work, and your success.

But we didn’t used to think so.

The Protestant work ethic

Through much of our history, there has been a sense that work is hard and unpleasant and that’s why we get paid to do it. This is expressed most clearly in Max Weber’s biblically-based work The Protestant Work Ethic, which was used by Protestant preachers to preach that hard labor was good for people, good for Christian society, and a salve for original sin. According to Christianity, humans used to live in the Garden of Eden, where everything was perfect. But because of original sin we were ejected and, according to Genesis 3:19, this is our situation now: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

According to Hebrew belief, work is a “curse devised by God explicitly to punish the disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve.” The Old Testament itself supports work, not because there’s any joy in it, but because it is necessary to prevent poverty and destitution.

The ancient Greek word for work is ponos, taken from the Latin poena, which means sorrow. Manual labor was for slaves, while free men were supposed to pursue warfare, large-scale commerce, and the arts, especially architecture or sculpture¹.

So, according to our cultural roots, work is a curse, a punishment for original sin, and only for slaves. In short, life is hell—or “nasty, brutish and short,” as Hobbes put it—work is hell, and we must endure it because we’re all sinners but don't worry, we'll get our reward once we're dead! Any questions?

It’s time to put that particular view of work behind us! Richard Reeves has this to say in his excellent book Happy Mondays:

Anybody who thinks work should be miserable simply because it is work or that there should be a cordon sanitaire between “work” and “life” needs to find a time machine, key in the year 1543, and go and join Calvin’s crew. They’ll feel more at home there. In the meantime, the rest of us will get on with enjoying our work, and our workplaces.

The scariest part of Patricia’s story is how easy it is to stay in a job that makes you unhappy, partly because we’re used to thinking work should be unpleasant, and partly because the negative effects sneak up on you so gradually. Think about it—did you used to be more happy, outgoing and energetic, and lost that somewhere along the way? Maybe your job is sucking the life from you. Maybe it’s time to make a change and spend the majority of your working hours on something that gives you life—rather than something that slowly sucks the energy, passion and drive out of you.

Here are the major reasons to be happy at work.

Work takes up most of our time

You may spend more of your adult life on your job than on anything else, except possibly sleep. Your work will take up more of your time than your family, friends and hobbies combined. That time will be so much better spent if you’re doing a job that actually makes you happy.

Work gives us most of our identity

Work is fast replacing religion in providing meaning in people’s lives. Work has become how we define ourselves, it is now answering the traditional religious questions: Who am I? How do I find meaning and purpose? Work is no longer just about economics; it’s about identity.

—Benjamin Hunnicutt, historian and professor at the University of Iowa at Iowa City

Just 50 years ago people had many sources of identity. Religion, class, nationality, political affiliation, family roots, and geographical and cultural origins all went into defining who we are. Today most of these, if not all, have been subsumed by work. When you meet someone at a party, what’s the first question you typically ask them? Exactly: “So, what do you do?”

We are increasingly defined by our work. It’s what takes up most of our time. It’s where we get to use most of our skills and talents. It’s where we experience our greatest triumphs and failures. It’s also the basis for our standard of living. All of this means that when work is not working for us, we become very vulnerable. This is why happiness at work is crucial!

Work affects our lives in general

Patricia’s story shows that being happy or unhappy at work also spills over into your private life. Some people can have a lousy day at work and then go home and be happy as if nothing has happened. However, most people can’t pull this off and a bad day at work tends to affect the rest of their day.

Work affects our health

According to Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in occupational stress at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that workplace stress has a significant impact upon health.

Lancaster University and Manchester Business School performed a study in 2005 involving 250,000 employees. They found that low happiness at work is a risk factor for mental health problems, including emotional burnout, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression. The report warned that just a small drop in job satisfaction could lead to burnout of “considerable clinical importance”.

A recent study of over 20,000 female nurses in the US over a four-year period found that unhappiness at work is just as bad for your health as smoking².

Not only are happy people happier, they’re also healthier.

Happiness leads to success

A business coach who often coaches top executives told me that many of his sessions end with his clients realizing that while they have indeed achieved all the outward signs of success, they’re just not happy at work or in life. They’ve got the corner office, company Mercedes, million-dollar salary, and huge stock options. But ask the right questions, and it turns out that many of them are lonely and lost. Their work brings them no joy, it holds no meaning, and creates no positive, lasting relationships. It also takes up all their time and keeps them away from their family and friends. One well-known top leader broke down crying over the realization that most of his working life had been wasted on chasing money and power. Soon after, he quit his job and is now doing work he loves—at 1/10th his old pay.

This begs the question: What is success worth, if it doesn’t make you happy? The Dalai Lama once said:

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness…

He was talking about happiness in life, but the point applies equally at work. What is the point of spending most of your life at a job that doesn’t make you happy? What would you feel like, lying on your deathbed, having achieved all the traditional signs of success—a huge house, flatscreen TVs in every room, lots of cars, a huge salary, a lofty title and a corner office—if your career never made you happy?

Luckily, we are seeing the emergence of a new approach to work. Work used to be something we did just to earn a living. Increasingly, the point of going to work is to be happy.

So, should we just try to be happy and forget all about success?

This is where it gets interesting: In December 2005 a group of researchers published the results of a meta-study, which combined 225 studies in happiness that had examined the lives of 225,000 people.

The researchers concluded that while success does make you happier, there is an even stronger correlation in the opposite direction, i.e., that happiness will make you successful. The study also found that happy people are more optimistic, outgoing, likeable, motivated and energetic—all essential qualities for business success.

This means that we don’t have to sacrifice happiness for the sake of success—a depressingly common assumption these days. In fact, the opposite is true: The happier you are, the more successful you will be.

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