Are you happy at work or just managing the grind until the end of work day?
Happiness is a major prerequisite for productivity. When you are happy at work, you:
- Experience creativity
- Engage better with what you do
- Make workplace friends easily
Unfortunately, there are times when you are in a slump, and don’t feel in the right frame of mind to work. This is a common situation, and happens to most people, even those working in the best of jobs.
The following smart suggestions can help you improve your workplace happiness quotient, so that you can have a better time at work, and become more productive.
Before looking at how you can be happy at work, it is important to point out that most times, happiness at work is tied to your work circumstances. Incentives such as good working environment, steady pay, health insurance, and retirement benefits are some of the factors that can engender workplace happiness and productivity.
Figure out your motivation
A lot of people are unhappy at work because they have not been able to discover what makes their job meaningful. When you work in a role you are not passionate about, it is difficult to be happy in that role. It is therefore important that you discover your definition for success and fulfillment, and see how it applies to your current job role.
Once you can find fulfillment in your job, you will be happy doing it, and this may mean a change in job role, or a complete career change.
Conduct a self audit
Different part of your work process may be responsible for draining your positive energy, and this can result in dissatisfaction and unhappiness in your work. You have to identify these energy drains and take steps to stop them.
For the next few days, make a list of all the things you do at work, and note how each one affects your frame of mind. Your list should contain both your intention and unintentional activities.
At the end of a week, check your list to find out the activities that drain your energy or tasks you mentally. Then ask yourself if there is anything you can do to balance the debit side of your audit. For example, if you have a lot of mentally tasking assignments, you can increase your number of breaks, so that you have more time to refresh.
Avoid working 24 hours
When you spend too much time at work, it becomes monotonous and can drain your energy and make you unhappy.
Unless absolutely needed, avoid the temptation to work the full 24 hours in a day. When you spend too much time doing the same thing with little or no downtime for yourself, you are courting workplace burnout.
If you work in an organization where constant overtime is the norm, you should seriously consider a change of job.
Make more friends
The people you surround yourself at work with will determine how happy you are during office hours. In fact, a Harvard study found that people who report great emotional connection with their colleagues tend to be happy and more productive, and the organization maintains a high level of employee retention.
This goes to show the strong evidence between close friendship at work, happiness, performance, and career success.
Therefore, if you want to be happier at work, get close to your co-workers, encourage collaboration, and be part of a successful network.
Reward yourself
Everyone knows that reward is incentive for work. However, you don’t have to wait for your boss or supervisor to reward you for work done. Creating a reward system for yourself will put you in the right frame of mind to get work done.
For example, you can say “I will only join my friends for happy hour after work if I finish this report on time”.
When you are motivated, you become happy, and when you are happy, you find it easy to do the things that need to be done.
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