Eight ways to be happier at work
| 25th September 2019
Happiness is such an emotive word. It has many different definitions to each one of us.
Is happiness for you a high-flying career; being the leader of a great team; the paycheck at the end of every month, or is it the work-life balance you achieve?
Whatever the reason, entrepreneur and master at unlocking people’s potential, Royston Guest explains eight ways how you can become happier at work and happier at home.
Entrepreneur and leading author on happiness in the workplace, Royston Guest
#1 Ask the question; What does success mean to you personally?
One of the keys to unlocking a motivational environment is to clearly understand your personal goals and how being successful at work can be one of the vehicles and enablers in helping you realise your goals. The moment we create the bridge in our mind – the link between our personal goals and what we do daily during work – self-motivation kicks in.
#2 And; What does success mean to you professionally?
When you align personally and professionally your meaning of success and, more importantly, the ‘WHY you do what you do’, this becomes a defining moment. It’s the moment you change from someone with a job to someone with a purpose.
#3 Be clear about your tensions and trade-offs
When you are clear about what success means to you, both personally and professionally, you can design your working life, fully aware of the tensions and trade-offs you’re making. For example, if you’re seeking a promotion, you may accept the extra hours you have to work to prove you’ve got skin in the game, or you may not. You remove the pressure to be someone that you’re not or don’t want to be. You remove the potential conflicts weighing you down and the unhappiness that goes with it.
#4 Treat your emotional wellbeing the same as you would your physical wellbeing
Your emotional wellbeing is not a luxury, and you should view it on an equal footing to your physical wellbeing. By understanding that it’s the energy source powering your performance – when it’s low, your performance is low – you recognise the short and long-term impact on you, your role and the business you work for.
#5 Streamline your working space
Take a good look at your working environment — is it clean, tidy, and minimalist or cluttered, messy, and disorganised? Our internal environment (mindset, thinking, and actions) will only ever be a reflection of our external environment. A cluttered office equals a cluttered mind!
#6 Set yourself up for success
Do you know what excellent performance looks like, feels like and acts like in your role?
If you haven’t got absolute clarity about what the expectations are for your role or what great looks like it’s almost predictable that you and your manager will be working to different interpretations of what it does look like. This is not good for productivity, and it certainly isn’t good for your wellbeing and happiness. Get clarity of purpose for your role and, more importantly, what excellent performance looks like.
#7 Learn something new today
Learn something new today should not be just a lesson from when you were a child, it should be a lifelong lesson. Why? Because one of the six core human needs is the need for growth – for emotional, intellectual or spiritual development. If you’re not learning and bettering yourself every day, then you are not growing.
#8 To give your best, you have to be at your best
It’s good to be focused and driven and to push yourself to excel – but it’s also good to do nothing. There are two ways to unwind and recover from hard work: there is rest, and there is relaxation, and the two aren’t entirely the same.
Rest is where you cease work or move – to sleep or recover your strength. You rest when you are tired and when you go to sleep at night. Sleep and rest refresh your mind and repair your body. Relaxation, on the other hand, is the act of relaxing and can be defined as the release of tension and the refreshment of the mind or body. Rest and relaxation work hand in hand, and it’s central to your happiness to invest time in both.
Royston Guest is a leading authority on growing businesses and unlocking people potential. Entrepreneur, author of #1 best-seller Built to Grow and RISE: Start living the life you were meant to lead.