5 Simple Ways to Boost Happiness at Work
Did you know happiness is a set of emotional and social skills that can be developed and enhanced? For the past 30 years the evidence has mounted. Happiness at work matters! It leads to job success, higher job satisfaction, higher team performance and employee engagement.
What does workplace happiness look like? Meaningful work, a sense of purpose and feelings of accomplishment. Raising your level of happiness at work is like Red Bull for your brain. It gives you the positive energy and mental focus you need to achieve your goals. Happy workplaces support overall health and well-being. Teams who raise their happiness level meet new challenges with flexibility and resilience.
Here are 5 simple exercises you can start today to generate more happiness at work. Pick one that most resonates with you and try it for a week before moving on to another exercise.
Learn something new. Personal growth on the job leads to greater job satisfaction. When you learn something new, confidence grows and pride increases. You’ll feel more connected and engaged to the work itself.
How to do it
At the start of the week, write down one new thing you’ll learn about a colleague, your organization or industry. The following week, share what you learned from the previous week with someone at work or post to LinkedIn or internal social group
2. Connect. Positive work relationships fuel meaning, happiness and help us manage stress.
How to do it
Join a community or professional group at your organization. If your company doesn’t have one, start one!
Prefer one-on-one connections? Reach out to someone in your company on LinkedIn to build your internal network. Meet with them virtually or in person for a coffee chat.
3. Build Your Optimism Muscle. Optimism helps you maintain a positive mindset about the future, despite current setbacks. It builds your overall mental well-being and happiness just like working out at the gym builds physical muscle. As happiness grows, your emotional capacity to manage tough situations, handle stress and thrive in new ways grows, too. It’s correlated to better health, higher income, job satisfaction and leadership success.
How to do it
When negative thoughts enter your mind, ask yourself, “How can I re-frame this to see it differently?
Consider, are you seeing things as they really are? How would someone else view the situation? How would someone you greatly admire approach the situation?
What words do you choose to explain your view? Are they negative? Words ignite emotional responses, which in turn form your world-view. Try using different words to describe things.
Take time to reflect on past accomplishments and remember the progress you’ve made!
Get a new perspective. When dealing with a difficult situation at work, look for a chance to get outside while you’re managing the situation. Literally change your view. Take a walk. Sit in a park, on your porch or balcony. Getting outside calms your reflexive emotions and stimulates creative problem solving.
4. Learn to forgive. It’s human nature to hold on to grievances and blame others. It can make us feel strong and powerful to engage in an “us vs. them” mentality. We do this to protect our ego. But at work it leads to stress, destructive conflict and anxiety. In the end, holding on to anger hurts you more than it hurts the other person.
How to do it
A good first step, is to remember a time when someone forgave you. “Pay it forward” by extending the same forgiveness to someone else.
Write a letter of forgiveness. Whether you give the person the letter is up to you. It can be risky if the person is your boss or has sway over your career. But the act of forgiving by writing the letter will release you from resentment and likely increase your happiness and emotional health.
5. Say Thank you. Expressing gratitude is one of the easiest and simplest things we can do at work to increase happiness in ourselves and others. Studies show gratitude promotes perseverance and goal attainment.
Curious about your current level of happiness at work? The EQ-i 2.0 Workplace self-assessment reveals your current levels of happiness and well-being. Contact susan@theeicoach.com to learn more.