Being Happier at Work

There may be a shortage of magic wands around in the workplace but there are a range of simple steps that you can take to make yourself happier at work. Most of us spend a third of each day at work, a third sleeping and a fair chunk of the rest preparing for and travelling to work, so whether we enjoy what we are doing and the people we are doing it with, makes a huge impact on our days and how we feel about life.

This tips sheet will help you to look at five areas of your work:-
ľ taking control
ľ making work activities more interesting
ľ being focussed
ľ learning and growing
ľ just being nice

All of these will give you some ideas to think about and practical suggestions for implementing them in your workplace. Read on and get ready to be happier.

Take Control
I¡¦m sure you¡¦ve heard the saying that asks for strength to change what you can change, patience to accept what you can¡¦t and the wisdom to spot the difference. It might sound like the kind of thing you¡¦d find printed on a T-towel but it is pointing to one direction of happiness. It¡¦s all too easy to spend a lot of time, energy and emotion on battling against things that are outside of your control. Much as you might want some things to change, they may be deeply ingrained in the ¡¥way we do things here¡¦ or the regulations that govern your area of work, or they may be down to the personalities of the people around you.

Instead of throwing yourself into battles that you know you can¡¦t win, or agonising over something you know isn¡¦t going to change, start to put your focus and your energies into the things you can make a difference with.

ľ Perhaps start with something quick and simple like your work space. Decide how you want this to be. Cheer it up, tidy it up, sort out your own systems, bring in photos of your favourite people and places and put them where you can see them.
ľ Monitor the tasks that you are asked to do at work and decide on better ways of doing them. Come up with processes that are more efficient, make the day easier for you whilst still getting the work done.
ƒæ Challenge yourself to find ways of delivering better outcomes. Remember, it¡¦s you you¡¦re doing this for, not your boss.
ľ Where you do have difficult issues you have to take up with your boss or colleagues, instead of trying to tackle them all at once pick the one that would have the biggest positive impact on your working life. Make sure you approach it assertively and that way you are much more likely to have an impact.

Make Work Activities More Interesting
This is about injecting a bit of fun and self-competition into your work. I¡¦m not advocating juggling staplers here, but finding ways in which you can make the outcomes of tasks more meaningful to you, which is particularly useful for those routine or dull bits which we all have as part of our jobs. You could start by looking at the parts of your job you find the most difficult to concentrate on or how you get on with other members of your team and try some of the following:-

ƒæ Jazz up the tasks by setting yourself a challenge ¡V guess how long it¡¦ll take you to accurately photocopy and collate the minutes of the board meeting, then next time see if you can knock five minutes off your personal best.
ľ Choose something you find difficult and commit to completing the task without making any mistakes.
ƒæ Each day next week talk to a colleague you¡¦ve never spoken to before.
ƒæ Decide to find out something about each member of your team ¡V e.g. the song they play to cheer themselves up or their favourite film.

Being Focussed
It¡¦s all too easy, when you aren¡¦t happy at work, to just let days drift by, hoping that they will pass as painlessly as possible. Even when things are going well it¡¦s easy not to see the positive if you aren¡¦t clear about what you are trying to achieve. Your working days will be happier if they have the focus of clear goals and the opportunity for rewards when you achieve them. You might already have some goals set for you by your manager.

It might be that you have your official deadlines and work plan but achieving them has little positive impact on you, in which case you need to set your own goals. The real knack is to make sure the goals you set yourself are achievable but enough of a challenge for you to need to really concentrate on them to be able to achieve them in the timescale you¡¦ve set yourself. Don¡¦t make them so easy you get bored or so hard that you can¡¦t reach them and get demoralised.

ƒæ Are you clear about what your boss is expecting of you? You need to know you are doing the right things, in the right way and to the right deadlines. If not, you need to start asking some basic questions. There is nothing more demoralising than working hard on some project only to be told it¡¦s not quite what your boss had in mind.
ľ Before you go home on Friday, decide what you are going to have achieved by the end of the following week. Be specific so you can clearly see if you have achieved what you set out to.
ľ Decide what reward you are going to give yourself for achieving your goals.


Learning and Growing
When you are learning something you are concentrating more on what you are doing and that¡¦s a perfect recipe for making the time slip by. Being constantly on the look out for ways of developing your skills and broadening your experience can also give you more things to put on your CV when you are next looking for a job move. Be aware though that it is also satisfying to learn things for their own sake, so even if you can¡¦t see a direct application for developing a new skill or area of knowledge, still take the opportunity. You never know when it will come in handy.

ƒæ Do an audit of your current skills ¡V what could you put on a future CV or use in other aspects of your life. Of these, ask yourself which you¡¦d like to develop further.
ƒæ Think about the things you can¡¦t currently do (or don¡¦t feel sufficiently confident of) that you would like to add to your skills list.
ľ Take a good hard look at your job and the opportunities it offers to you. Are there things you could do more of, or do differently that would give you the opportunity of developing yourself. There may be things you put off or leave to other members of your team, that by taking on yourself would give you the opportunity of learning something new.
ľ Acquiring a new skill could easily be something you set yourself a goal to achieve.

Just Being Nice
One of the things that comes up again and again in surveys of happiness is the amazing power of kindness. We all know how good it feels when someone does or says something nice unexpectedly. If gives us a real boost and makes us feel happier. An even more powerful way of getting a happiness boost though is being the person who makes the nice gesture. By making someone else feel good about themselves you make yourself feel even better.

ľ Pick the person you get on least well with and find something positive to say to them each day next week. It could be a compliment or a comment on their work or thanking them for something they have done.
ľ If someone is wearing something you like or that makes them look good, then tell them.
ƒæ Offer to make the tea and bring in your colleagues¡¦ favourite biscuits to go with it.
ľ Offer to do a job that you know no one else likes doing.
ƒæ Give up your seat on the bus, tube or train to someone ¡V just because you can. Then bask in the glow of having done a good deed.

OK, now it¡¦s over to you. You¡¦ve got a range of ideas here that can help make a real difference to your work life ¡V but only if you put them into practice. Why not highlight your favourite idea and commit to doing it next time you¡¦re at work (put a note in your diary to remind you). Whatever you start with, the key is to keep going, to try a range of suggestions and to see which work best for you.


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