Five Tips on How to be Happy @ Work

If you find yourself daydreaming at work today about finding a job that will bring you happiness and joy, you might be surprised to find that you can easily create a happy work environment with just a little effort.

Rather than give your notice and choose a career path you think might have greener pastures, roll up your sleeves and give these five effective tips on how to be happy at work a try.

1. Leave Personal Issues at Home Bringing your personal problems to work is never a good idea for creating a productive and happy work environment. When you are preoccupied with a personal problem at work, the confinement and inability to change things from that cubicle can just add to your stress levels. If you can let go of work problems when you are home with the family, try leaving family issues at home and you will find your morale at work picks up. Chances are pretty good as you focus on your work, those issues at home will work themselves out anyway.
2. Create Your Office Support System Just like you surround yourself with friends who you share a common interest with while away from work, try and do the same at work and watch how your outlook brightens. Create an inner circle of friends at work that all share a common interest, it can help to take away some of the pressures on the job. Putting together a bowling team, a walking club or joining a fantasy sports league with colleagues is a great way to talk about things that excite you and make it more enjoyable to make that drive into work each day.
3. Building Your Office Nest Most people are at their jobs for more time then they spend in their own bed at night. Spending over eight hours in the same room can become a grind and wear on your ability to find positive things to focus on each day. Transform your work space into your very own love nest, complete with pictures of those exotic places you want to go away to on vacation, pictures of the kids, and motivation sayings that drive you towards your goals. Be sure to stay within the company policy as far as decorating your space, then relax a few minutes each day and feel the feelings of what it is like to be at or with those in the pictures.
4. Start Moving Around Spending eight hours in an office environment can easily become a very sedentary job. One of the ways to improve your mood and be happy at work is to get up and start moving. During your break simply take a walk to your car and just soak in some fresh air or marvel at the landscaping around the building. Rather than eat your lunch at the cafeteria or in your cubicle, take a walk to a local food establishment. When you need to take a bathroom break, take the longest possible route to the facilities and enjoy the time away from your desk. Moving around a little more each day can improve your health and well-being, helping to change your outlook on life.
5. Get Organized and Reward Yourself One way to increase your happiness at the work place is to simply get organized. That excess clutter can make even the easiest tasks of your day overwhelming. Develop a schedule each day you can manage, create file folders for everything, and keep things on your desk to a minimum. Once you begin to easily handle the workload each day, start to reward yourself for a job well done. Too many people work to the point of exhaustion each week and never take time to reward themselves. Each week after work, plan to see a movie with friends, stay at a bed & breakfast, see a play, try a new restaurant or do anything that will get you excited on Monday to get through your work week and to your weekly reward.

Follow a few of these happiness tips and your morale at work will improve, your energy level will increase, and your entire outlook will be more positive. The end result is that not only will you increase your own level of happiness, your glowing spirit will become contagious at work and more positive people will start gravitating towards you.

About Devin C. Hughes:

I help leaders leaders, groups, organizations, and teams break down enterprise-wide cultural barriers, improve personal/organizational performance and enhance communication through greater self awareness and understanding of one another. My approach draws from the science of positive psychology, positive organizational research, appreciative inquiry, neuroscience, mindset and mindfulness. As a result, clients receive the cutting edge in research on well-being and flourishing. To learn more or get in touch, visit http://devinchughes.com