What makes us happy at work? When we think of making ourselves feel more fulfilled, we think of gaining more skills, confidence, or aptitude. Here are five suggestions for things we could give up to be happier at the office. We’re not talking lunchbreaks, but simple attitude changes that could revolutionise your working life.
1 Give up your need to always be right
When we try to be right, we are in effect trying to make someone else wrong. Work is never that black and white. By trying to always be right, you can severely damage important relationships you have with your colleague, boss, or customer. If you can try to focus on solutions – going forward together – instead of being right, you can have less stress and better, happier, more effective relationships at work.
2 Give up attachment and your resistance to change
We have expectations about what we want our work environment to be like in order for us to be happy. You want to be paid well, work with great people and a good boss, have challenging but achievable work and make a difference. Expectations are not always within our scope to change; you can, at least theoretically, change job if you don’t like your pay, colleagues, boss, workload, or company ethics, but if you focus on things you can’t change, your attachments can make you very unhappy.
Our attachment to these expectations can make us unhappy when we are not getting what we want, but equally, we can become very attached to the way things are and bitterly resist adapting to change when it is forced on us. This need for our work environment to be a certain way is the root cause of a great deal of unhappiness and misdirected energy.
If you can stay open minded, accepting your workplace as a fluid environment rather than wishing to fix it in one shape and be willing to accept the unchangeable and adapt to changes at work, you are already working positively to take action instead of feeling bad about it.
3 Give up on blame, complaining, criticism and the past
We can waste a lot of time at work dwelling on the past, usually on something that happened that we didn’t like. It’s not just human nature, it’s a learning mechanism built into all animals. But this sort of negative thought can waste time and damage your relationship with your colleagues, so forgive and then firmly forget.
Difficult as it can be to resist the temptation to complain about, criticise and blame others, no productive progress can come out of it; and rather than make you happier at work, moaning will only re-enforce your negative feelings about your workplace.
When we slip into the habit of grumbling, we run the risk of getting a reputation for moaning or bitching which can damage our professional standing and, by making this sort of behaviour acceptable, you lay yourself open to the same treatment in the future, so it’s worth working to present yourself as a positive person.
In the same way that smiling can make us feel more cheerful, looking for the positive in a situation or finding something positive to say about a colleague can genuinely help make you to feel happier at work and remind you of what you like about your workplace and colleagues.
4 Give up self-defeating talk, as well as self-limiting beliefs, fears and excuses
Just like giving up negative thoughts about others, it’s also so important to give up negative thoughts about yourself and what you are capable of doing. We can choose what we tell ourselves, so why not choose to tell yourself inspiring things? For example, when set a task, you may think “I dislike doing that because I don’t do it well” or “I don’t have enough time to do it well – what if it’s no good?”
We rarely feel we have the time or skill to spend on the projects life sets us, whether the task is a presentation at work, a costume for the school play or a celebration dinner with friends. In the latter two cases we pitch in and do our best – and our family and friends are happy and grateful for the results. Apply the same can-do attitude to work and see what you can achieve.
5 Give up your need to live your life to other people’s expectations
Producing work to expected levels is one thing, but too often office life can make us unhappy about other aspects of our lives. Many people fall into this trap because we live in a society that loves to flaunt material wealth and compare status; the kind of car we drive, the house we live in, the school our kids goes to and our holiday destination.
These distractions are a frequent cause for unhappiness, damaging your self-esteem as well as your working efficiency. But you have a choice on whether to subscribe to the standards and expectations of other people. Why not try setting your own standards? Give up your need to worry about what the people in your office think about your life choices, focus on what you have achieved in life and be happy with how you choose to live.
