Cultivate More Happiness at Work: 5 Tips to Follow
How to manage triggers and annoyances, set boundaries, and regain your agency.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash
Your alarm goes off at 5:45 AM. Instantly, your chest tightens with the usual mix of panic and dread at the thought of yet another unhappy workday ahead.
You drag yourself out of bed with the willpower of a heavyweight fighter. Knowing that at least your favorite caffeinated elixir is less than five minutes away.
I remember those days well and still have nightmares about being in that realm. When I look back at my frustrations and feelings of powerlessness related to my unhappy work environment, these are the five things I wish I would’ve known.
Mindset Is More Important Than You Think
Happiness comes from within. I know it sounds painfully cliche, yet it’s absolutely true.
Happiness comes from a sense of worthiness, purpose, and connection to ourselves, a community, and a spiritual practice. It’s an inside job.
There will always be external triggers and annoyances that pull us into aggravation, judgment, and fear. It might be a demanding boss, a slacking co-worker, or a challenging client. And, when it comes to the people around us, the only aspects we can control is our mindset and how we respond.
We can haphazardly react, get upset, and perpetuate emotional chaos, or we can consciously choose to step back, take time to calm down, and then rationalize the situation and our potential options.
Candidly, the hardest part is remembering these choices.
When we’re emotionally flooded, the most effective next step is to kindly remove ourselves from the situation so that we may allow our nervous system to regulate and access the higher, more logical parts of our brain.
Remembering in the midst of an uncomfortable circumstance that you’re a capable adult and you have choices is vital to well-being. You’re not stuck or a victim, and you don’t have to be a martyr.
If you’re not happy at work, or in any relationship for that matter, the only person who can change it is you.
I get it. While that may seem simplistic and trite, taking personal responsibility for your happiness is critical to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Unfortunately, I see folks nearly every day who place blame or aren’t sure where to start to take back their lives and livelihood. Often, with valid, multi-layered reasons for being caught in a chronic loop of unfulfillment, people feel lost, aren’t sure how to regain their agency, and assign the fault of their unhappiness to their boss, company, or work environment.
Needless to say, it’s a bittersweet kind of hell.
Boundaries Are Beautiful
Most people think of boundaries as setting limits with others. Something happened that you didn’t like, and you asked someone not to do that around you again.
We often forget the need to set personal boundaries — that is, establish boundaries with ourselves and what we agree to.
It feels a bit strange to think about setting our own limits. And yet, when we stop and analyze our most significant challenges at work or in life, it becomes painfully evident that guidelines are missing, and there’s been a tendency for our conniving ego to run amok.
Any of these sound familiar?
I’ll just work an extra hour tonight to catch up. Three hours later, you’re still at it.
I have to go to this meeting, that meeting, and this other meeting today. None of which are actually related to your current work priorities.
My co-worker really needs my help on a project. I’ll just work on my stuff late this afternoon or tonight. It’s fine. Meanwhile, your time, energy, mental and physical capacity depletes, and you and your work suffer.
Think about personal boundaries as a loving mentor to your inner teenager, there to share advice, encouragement, and accountability.
Examples of personal boundaries at work include:
Being honest with yourself and others about your current workload, time capacity, and unresolved questions or challenges
Prioritizing workflow (in and out)
Focused time blocks when you can be most productive
Asking for help when needed or sharing candidly when you don’t fully understand something
And taking frequent mental and physical breaks of standing up, walking around, taking a few deep breaths, drinking water, or going outside for 5 minutes
Be The CEO of Your Life
The key to work-life integration and happiness at work is reducing stress and overwhelm.
This is accomplished by making time for personal priorities in the heart of your day. What does that look like?
Don’t let your personal to-do list add up. You don’t have to leave all your personal priorities for the end of the day or the weekend. If something is important to you, you have the ability to make it happen.
Maybe you go for a 30-minute walk during or after lunch, knock out a personal errand, go on a necessary appointment, like to the dentist or therapy, eat healthily, or take a call from a loved one.
Just because you’re at work doesn’t mean your life stops.
Balancing the demands of work and the demands of life is incessantly hectic. Happiness is the outcome of taking care of ourselves and our responsibilities regardless of which category they fall into, work or life.
Cause when you think about it, it all comes from one precious resource — our time.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
I remember the days when I dedicated nearly every waking hour to my job. I was the first employee at a start-up and, not surprisingly, wore various hats related to sales and marketing, operations, and simple but time-consuming day-to-day tasks.
I was young and learning, still earning my stripes and eager to prove my worth. I absolutely loved it!
And as the company grew and flourished, I robotically maintained a routine of overworking, often sacrificing my personal time and alleged lifestyle priorities.
You see, happiness at work is simply an extension of the happiness in your overall life.
We all crave a sense of aliveness, connection, meaning, and growth opportunities. How are you fulfilling these fundamental desires? What do you love to do?
Having other passions outside of work is probably the most obvious and basic counsel. And yet, I can’t tell you how often I meet with people who share that they routinely work over 40 hours a week and can’t find time for anything else.
Do you love to play music or tennis, paint, cook, read, garden, or volunteer for a charity close to your heart? Whatever it is, make sure you’re doing that with consistency.
It might be once a week or once a month. You decide. And then put it in your schedule, so it actually happens.
Having a well-rounded life with pockets of variety and spontaneity will enhance your overall happiness in all areas.
When You Need a Lifeline
The #1 sign of mental health is the ability to ask for help. If you’re unhappy with your job, feel stuck, or lost the thread line of your purpose and potential, please ask for help. You’re not alone.
Maybe you have a trusted friend, work partner, or access to a career counselor. Ask to have a candid conversation about your feelings and fears.
Or, if you don’t have someone you feel safe being authentic with, please reach out to a therapist, coach, or support group. You can also message me.
Now, more than ever, there are numerous resources to take advantage of.
Your life is the sum of your daily habits, of your daily choices. Only you can decide if happiness at work is worth pursuing.
You can continue sulking in the quagmire of discontent or pause and reflect on what’s most important to you and choose that.
Regardless, you, dear one, always have choices.
. . .
Rebecca Murauskas is a Life Coach for professionals. She helps people be free of stress and overwhelm, reclaim their purpose, and feel fulfilled. Rebecca and her husband, Adam, abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take the free Time Saver Quiz and find additional content at RebeccaMurauskas.com.