There is an extremely high correlation between being appreciated and work satisfaction. If you are the boss, you have the potential to earn more trust, loyalty, and commitment from your employees simply by recognizing them regularly for their work. If you are the employee, set the wheels in motion by offering gratitude and praise to your coworkers and bosses. When appreciated, everyone’s productivity, creativity, and well-being increases, so let it start with you. As Gandhi said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
Personalize Your Workspace
It sounds obvious, but surrounding yourself with beauty and personal mementos affects your mood. Display photos of your loved ones, art that inspires you, and images of places or things that make you feel light and expanded. If your surroundings are drab, grey, and cold, you will feel far less connected to whatever you’re doing. Make your space an area you want to enter, and see if it shifts your willingness to actually be there.
Happiness is largely a choice. I can hear many of you arguing with me, but it's true. You can choose to be happy at work. Sound simple? Yes. But, simplicity is often profoundly difficult to put into action.
So, think positively about your work. Dwell on the aspects of your work you like. Avoid negative people and gossip. Find coworkers you like and enjoy and spend your time with them. Your choices at work largely define your experience. You can choose to be happy at work.
Do Something You Love Every Single Day
You may or may not love your current job, and you may or may not believe that you can find something in your current job to love, but you can. Trust me.
Take a look at yourself, your skills and interests, and find something that you can enjoy doing every day. If you do something you love every single day, your current job won't seem so bad. Of course, you can always make your current job work or decide that it is time to quit your job.
Take Responsibility for Knowing What Is Happening at Work
Passive vessels, they wait for the boss to fill them up with knowledge. And, the knowledge rarely comes.
Why? Because the boss is busy doing his/her job and he/she doesn't know what you don't know. Seek out the information you need to work effectively. Develop an information network and use it. Assertively request a weekly meeting with your boss and ask questions to learn. You are in charge of the information you receive.
Make Only Commitments You Can Keep
One of the most serious causes of work stress and unhappiness is failing to keep commitments. Many employees spend more time making excuses for failing to keep a commitment and worrying about the consequences of not keeping a commitment than they do performing the tasks promised.
Create a system of organization and planning that enables you to assess your ability to complete a requested commitment. Don't volunteer if you don't have time. If your workload is exceeding your available time and energy, make a comprehensive plan to ask the boss for help and resources. Don't wallow in the swamp of unkept promises.
Avoid Negativity
Choosing to be happy at work means avoiding negative conversations, gossip, and unhappy people as much as possible. No matter how positively you feel, negative people have a profound impact on your psyche.
If All Else Fails, Job Searching Will Make You Smile
If all of these ideas aren't making you happy at work, it's time to reevaluate your employer, your job, or your entire career. You don't want to spend your life doing work you hate in an unfriendly work environment.
Most work environments don't change all that much. But unhappy employees tend to grow even more disgruntled. You can secretly smile while you spend all of your non-work time searching for a job. It will only be a matter of time until you can quit your job — with a big smile.
