How to be happy at work
A great cause needs your support: January 24 is Belly Laugh Day.
I could have some fun with one of Brad Montgomery’s squeakers. Or with some silly string. In fact his whole site is great – check it out.
For those who are not happy at work: Maximize your time away from work with Jobacle’s sick day calendar. Hilarious.
Is your new years resolution to find a new job? Congratulations, you’re not alone! According to statistics, around 15% of the population switch jobs annually. At any given time, over half of the workforce are more or less actively looking for new work.
This means that many, many people are facing an interesting question: How do I pick my next job? Which factors should matter? Which should I forget about?
Many make the decision based mostly on salary, titles and responsibilities. That’s a mistake.
Instead ask yourself this: Will your next job inspire you, energize you and allow you to do great work? Will you be working with nice, talented people and managers? Will your job help people out and make the world a better place?
In short, make sure that your next job is one that will make you happy at work. Here are the steps you should take to make sure that your next job will be just that amazingly great!
No one has ever told me “I quit Company X in June, that was a mistake. I should’ve stuck around longer.” The vast majority of people who quit, only wish they’d done it sooner.
It’s highly tempting to hang around in the old workplace waiting for things to get better. Don’t! If it’s time to go – make that decision and start actively looking for something else. The longer you stay in a bad job, the more it eats away the energy and self-confidence you need to find a new one.
The very first job you look at may be just the right one… or it may be the 20th.
Give yourself time to actively look for something better and don’t let economic pressure, peer pressure or uncertainty force your hand.
Many people switch jobs to get away from a bad situation. However, when you’re picking a new job, it’s not enough to look at all the things you want to avoid. Partly because there are an infinite number of things to avoid. But mostly because even if you avoid every single bad thing, that can only guarantee that you won’t be unhappy. To be happy at work, you also need good things, not just the absence of bad.
The best way to find out what you want at work, is to look at what has previously made you love your job. Here’s how you do it:
If you want to do examine this in more detail, page 3 of this workbook has a worksheet for doing just that.
Most people think that having a higher income would make them happier. They’re wrong! That is the conclusion of a study by Two Princeton professors, economist Alan B. Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. They say this:
The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities.
I don’t mean to ignore the economic necessities we all face but they should not determine what work we take. What is a 25% raise worth, if it means being stressed, frustrated and unhappy 40/60/80 hours a week?
Some people choose their new job because of:
None of these factors will make you happy! Forget about them.
It’s a lot easier to get what you want if you actually ask for it. In your job interviews, let them know that being happy at work matters to you, and tell them what it takes to get you to love work.
It’s true that asking for these things may mean not getting the job, and that’s precisely the point! If that job won’t make you happy, you don’t want it!
It’s up to you to find a good job, and then it’s up to you to make it a great job!
You can sit passively on your butt and wait for your co-workers and your manager to make you happy – but that means nothing will ever happen. It’s your responsibility to:
A bad job is bad. A bad job that you can’t get out of is excruciating. In fact, knowing that you’re free to leave can make it easier to make a job great, as I wrote about in a previous post.
Also, reducing your expenses can be a great way to give yourself more leeway at work.
Forget about salary, perks, titles and status. Choose your next job based on one, single consideration: Will it make you happy? Will it make you go “Yes, it’s Monday, I get to work!”
Do this and you’re sure to enjoy your job more, enjoy life more AND be more successful at work.
If you enjoyed this post, I’m pretty sure you’ll also like these:
2006 was a spectacular year for my blog. Huge(!) numbers of visitors and traffic. I’ve had to talk to my internet provider several times to increase my traffic quota.
As always, some posts get way more attention than others. Here’s a list of my top 10 hits of 2006:
I’ve been thinking a little about what’s made the blog such a success. The main factor has to be that I’ve found a way to make writing fun. If I don’t have fun writing, my writing is no good. That, and reddit.com.
Over the last 4 years, I must have read some 3-400 books related to happiness at work, and the ones listed here are the ones that have truly inspired me, moved me and made me think. They’re also all well written and a pleasure to read. Enjoy!
Hal Rosenbluth: The customer comes second
The story of a company that put its employees first and got amazing results from it.
Timothy Gallwey: The inner game of work
The most inspiring approach to learning at work I have ever seen.
Harrison Owen: Open Space Technology
Explains Open Space Meetings – the most insanely efficient and fun meeting form I have ever tried. For 10-1000 people. From 3 hours to 5 days.
Peter Block : The answer to how is yes
Whenever we start a new project, most of us go straight to “How?” But the right place to start is to ask “Why?” If you can’t find a reason that makes you go “Yes!” you probably shouldn’t do it.
Kevin and Jackie Freiberg: Nuts!
The story of Southwest Airlines, one of the happiest and most successful companies I know. A classic book!
Paul Watzlawick: Change
When do people change and when do they actively resist change? This book has some amazing knowledge on the paradoxical nature of personal change. One of my all-time favorites.
Robert Wright: Non zero
The world is becoming better and better. It pays to be nice. Those who cooperate are more efficient than those who compete. This book has many positive messages, all backed up by science. It’s also a great read.
Ricardo Semler: The Seven-Day Weekend
The story of Semco, the Brazilian company where workers choose their own salaries, work hours and managers. If you only read one book about happiness at work, make it this one.
The Lazy Way to Success
If work feels hard, you’re not doing it right. Fred Gratzon, entrepreneur and millionaire, explains why it always pays to be lazy.
Martin Seligman: Learned Optimism
Seligman explains Positive Psychology, why positive people lead better lives and how to learn to be positive.
Richard Layard: Happiness, Lessons from a new Science
How could you run a nation, based on making people as happy as possible? Interestingy, Layard is currently advising British politicians on this.
David L. Cooperrider, Diana Whitney and Jacqueline M. Starvos: The Appreciative Inquiry Handbook
Appreciative Inquiry is the most efficient tool I know for creating efficient, positive change in organizations and this book explains it simply.
Tim Sanders: Love is the Killer App
Explains why love, not greed or fear, is the most powerful force in business.
Annette Simmons: The Story Factor
The best book I know about applying storytelling in the business world.
Richard Reeves: Happy Mondays
You would never accept a romantic relationship that was “sort of OK??? or stay with a spouse who is “you know, nothing special, but I’m used to him/her???. So why should you accept anything less than true fulfillment on the job?
Alfie Kohn: No contest
Competition is everywhere in the business world, but contrary to popular belief, competition makes us less efficient and less happy.
There are many more book reviews on the blog – more than a hundred in fact.
I’m taking a short blogging break over Christmas and will be back at my browser on Wednesday the 28th. 
If you’re looking for some great reading about happiness at work over the holidays, here are some excellent blogposts.
Bob Sutton has evidence that smiling makes you happy and likable as Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project claimed. It’s one of those “of course it’s true, but it’s still really nice to have studies backing it up” deals.
David Maister tells the story of a truly courageous leader, “Jay Bertram, president of the TBWA office in Toronto, who asked his people to evaluate him and offered to resign if he did not improve how well he performed his role as their leader.”
The Slacker Manager tells us how to write holiday cards to staff. “My ink-stained fingers are evidence of the labor of the last four hours. Only fifteen cards to show for it, but each is different and personal (no “Good job, Bob??? here).” It’s too late for this Christmas (unless you’re a really last-minute kind of person), but there are some great tips there.
The Brazen Careerist thinks financial freedom is outdated and that we should go with optimism instead. “HELLO???? Can everyone standing in line to buy a Lear Jet please get a reality check? You do not need a plane to be happy, you need a plane to go visit the people who make you happy. A jet is not an expression of financial freedom. It’s an expression of your decision to not live near the people who mean the most to you.”
Stephen Shapiro has a great post on allowing yourself to feel the pain in your life. “In college, I made this mix tape, aptly titled “The Depression Tape.??? It had the sappiest, saddest music you could imagine, containing nearly every song performed by Bread, Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful to Me,??? and Elton John’s sadder songs. You get the point.”
Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace interviews some weirdo who calls himself The Chief Happiness Officer. Sheeeeesh, there are some strange people out there.
And here are some great articles about happiness at work:
Kenny Moore Held a Funeral to mark his company’s transition to a new organization. “When it was over, the CFO said to me, “You have some set of balls. Nobody but you could have gotten away with this.” But I didn’t feel like I had been very brave. People are dying to be connected, invited, involved. They don’t like having things shoved down their throats in a formulaic way. They show energy and commitment when they can be players and influence an initiative’s outcome.”
Why we evolved altruism 12.000 years ago. “If an individual defended the group but was killed, any genes that the individual shared with the overall group would still be passed on.”
How economists measure happiness. “Happiness is a big question both for researchers and for policy wonks these days, so it is slightly discomfiting to reflect that people may not even know the answer to the simple question, ‘Are you happy?’”
Work should always be fun for all colleagues. We all only have one life. A third of life is work. Without desire and fun, work becomes hell.
– Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA
On my post about Liking vs. loving your job, Love Lost asks:
I had a job that I loved, I worked hard, loved what I did, did well with the people I worked with. But then the 18 month contract ran out and I can’t go back for six months and they can’t make me a permanent employee.
So what do you do when you lose a job you love and take a job you may hate?
That’s a really good question. What would you do? Write a comment, I’d really like to know!
My store manager implemented an embarrassing (and happily short-lived) safety incentive: Employees caught violating safety procedure were immediately given a two-foot rubber chicken on a string to wear around their necks–in front of customers. To get rid of the chicken, an employee needed to catch another employee behaving “unsafely.”
The practice quickly descended into a game of hot potato, with employees chasing one another around the store in search of the slightest violation to rid themselves of the safety chicken.
Many people don’t feel motivated at work, and there’s a very simple explanation for this: The motivational techniques used by most managers don’t work.
While few companies use rubber chickens (fortunately), most of the standard motivational tools like promotions, bonuses, employee of the month awards, pep-talks and free-pizza-nights are downright harmful to the drive, energy and commitment of employees. It only leaves them feeling manipulated, cynical and demotivated.
The result: According to one Gallup study 60-80% of workers are not engaged at work. They feel little or no loyalty, passion or motivation on the job. They’re putting in the hours, but they’re not doing a great job and they’re certainly not happy at work!
As the illustration above shows, there are four different kinds of motivation. Only one of them works and unfortunately, many managers focus exclusively on the other three. Kinda silly, huh?
These are the four different kinds of motivation:
(more…)
The first reviews from readers of my just-published book about happiness at work Happy Hour is 9 to 5 are coming in and people seem to love it. Yaaaaay!
Sheldon Cooke says:
“…by far one of the most refreshing books on work culture that I’ve ever seen.”
Lars Pind says:
“I just purchased my copy, and it’s looking really good… It’s easily worth the $19 price tag for the PDF version.
stic writes:
“…the tips & tricks and recommendations will certainly take you closer to this euphoria.”
Read all about the book, read it free online and buy it here.
If you’ve read it, you can also add your own review.
First go read this inspiring story from Kenny Moore, a catholic monk who went corporate.
My plan was to anonymously send a $40 floral arrangement to two unsuspecting employees every Monday morning… Attached to the flowers would be a note: “Don’t ever think your good efforts go unnoticed.” Signed: “From someone who cares.”
Then do the same: Send someone in your organization an anonymous present. Flowers, candy, balloons, a cool gadget. Something fun, happy, cheap and positive. Attach a note similar to Kenny’s
Then watch what happens and tell me about it in a comment.
The Chief Happiness Officer’s Monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.
The Chief Happiness Officer Academy is our most in-depth 3-day training where we share everything we know about creating happier workplaces. Get an in-depth background in happiness at work, hear about the latest research in the field and learn how to use this in your own business.