Happiness At Work

‘Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.'

                                                                                                    Confucius

Many of us spend more waking hours at work than at home, and so I thought that it is important to include some posts about happiness at work and some related topics.

We have of course already looked into the way that accomplishments contribute to our well-being in Aiming High: Accomplishments and Goals and we looked into the difficult side of work in Don't Burn Out: Resilience At Work, which you may also wish to review if you have a specific interest in occupational well-being. This week’s post is complementing these previous ones, looking at some additional factors positively influencing our work lives. As we spend so many hours at work anyway, we may as well make the most of it!

The benefits of happiness at work

There are many arguments for feeling good at work: It makes us more effective when making decisions, and we tend to become more creative and have a better general work performance. We also change our jobs less frequently. Happy workers also tend to go over and beyond their formal duties and often have a general positive effect on their colleagues and the business as a whole, elevating general work moral and efficiency. And people who are happy at work also tend to earn more money (although they are often not primarily motivated by money, as you will find out below).¹

As discussed in last week’s post, optimism is highly associated with a high level of well-being, and there is evidence that an optimistic attitude makes us more successful in stressful jobs with frequent setbacks.² Finally, an open and optimistic attitude has also been identified as a factor protecting us from burnout.³

Work and well-being

Happiness at work is complex and could fill an entire blog on its own. One common mistake we can make is to think that our work achievements are going to bring us lasting happiness. Depending on our type of personality, it may be easy to immerse ourselves in high-pressure jobs and get ‘hooked’ on goal attainment while neglecting other aspects of our lives.⁴ Although accomplishments are an important component to well-being and a fulfilled life, they are just that: a component.⁵ Only the minority of us genuinely thrive on long working hours, and it has been shown that an adequate work-life balance is essential for a successful and productive long-term career.^3,4

Apart from accomplishments, what else does our well-being at work depend on? There are many other different factors, including our specific profession or job role, our colleagues, the general work conditions and organisational structure, as well as the more peripheral factors, such as the length and type of our commute to work.¹

And there is one other crucial factor: It has been shown that people who are happy, positive and optimistic in their private lives are also usually happier at work.¹ As we have learned throughout the blog, our lifestyle, mindsets and attitudes have a great impact on our general wellbeing, And so it turns out that we can – at least to a large degree – influence our happiness at work, too.^1-6

This means that most of the posts throughout this year also apply to our occupational well-being. However, the very basics of having sufficient sleep/rest, adequate nutrition and exercise have been shown to be particularly important to stay productive and happy at work.⁴ Some additional more specific facts and tips are listed below.

Type of work-related attitude¹

Our attitude to work has a great impact on well-being and can be generally divided into three types:

• Job orientation: People who are job-orientated simply see their work as a way, which enables them to pay their bills. They may work hard for monetary incentives but leisure time remains most important to them, and they look forward to the end of each working day. Job-orientated people will generally just follow what they are told rather than bringing in a lot of initiative into their work.
• Career orientation: Career-orientated people are ambitious and see their work as a path to gain additional values. This is not necessarily just an increasing amount of money but may also be respect or status. They may enjoy work, although they still tend to think about leisure time and holiday a lot. Career-orientated people may take initiative in their work, but this is often to impress supervisors rather than for intrinsic motives.
• Calling orientation: People with calling orientation are generally passionate about their work. They see it as an opportunity to develop their talents and feel that they make an important contribution to other people or the world in general. They work hard because they find their work intrinsically rewarding, and tend to think about job-related things even outside formal working hours. And it is probably not surprising that these types of people tend to be happiest workers. This does not necessarily mean that they are workaholics and that they cannot have a good work-life balance, it just means that they love their work and genuinely like spending time there.

What is important to point out is that the categories do not necessarily depend on the type of job you have. For example, in any given occupation approximately 1/3rd of the people are calling orientated- not only teachers or doctors, but also bus drivers, hospital administrators or financial administrators.

The big difference between calling-orientated people and the other two categories is that they tend to develop their job further and go beyond and above the call of duty: they take on additional tasks, think about more efficient ways of doing things, help their colleagues and take initiative to make changes around their work-place to make it a more pleasant place for themselves and others.

So adopting a calling orientation can help us to enhance our well-being at work, and that of our colleagues. The following points may help with trying to become more calling orientated.

Personality and personal strengths

Having a job, which fits your inherent personality traits and strengths can certainly be a key factor in long-term job satisfaction.  For example, if you are extraverted and sociable, you are likely to get on well in a job where you frequently have contact with lots of different people. Our personalities and attitudes can also make us more vulnerable to stress, particularly if we have perfectionistic and pessimistic tendencies, which can make work in high-pressure and ‘high-defeat’ jobs more difficult.^2,4

Another factor to consider are our signature strengths. These are individual characteristics, which resonate with our values and which give us a sense of meaning. Character strengths include for example Fairness, Empathy, Leadership or Belief/Spirituality. As you may know from personal experience, working at a place which is not corresponding to your values, or where you may even even be forced to do something contrary to your values can be highly demoralizing.

Conversely, we can increase our well-being at work by consciously and regularly applying our signature strengths.^1,6,7 So gaining some clarity about the strengths and values that we have, and how they relate to those of our employer and/or our customers is an important step towards a fulfilled work life. You can do a free signature strengths test at https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu or https://www.viacharacter.org (both free but registration required).

Motivation and engagement

Closely associated with the work-related attitude and values is the question of motivation and engagement- this is what keeps us going. As these aspects are not only very important but also slightly more complex, they will be discussed in more detail in next week’s post. But briefly, following factors can contribute to a higher level of motivation and engagement at work:

• Intrinsic motivation: This means that we find our activity directly rewarding, meaningful and/or pleasurable, rather than relying on external rewards such as money or approval by other people.^4,6,8
• Having a sense of autonomy.⁸
• Experiencing mastery and flow: Mastering a task and increasing our skills gives us a sense of increased control over our environment. If we have the right match between our skill and the task, we experience flow. Experiencing flow means being so deeply absorbed in an activity that we lose the sense of time and self-consciousness. Both mastery and flow make us feel good and directly contribute to our well-being.^4,8

So by trying to actively savour moments at work, which we experience as rewarding and meaningful, by seeking autonomy wherever possible and by cultivating mastery, as well as accepting and seeking appropriate challenges, we can increase our well-being- more on this will follow next week.

Keep connected

Our general well-being stands and falls with the relationships to other people. And so building good relationships to our work colleagues is an essential component to happiness at work. However, it has been traditionally often suggested it is very important to safeguard our self-interest and that selfish behaviour may be the key to professional success.¹ Contrary to this, recent scientific research has shown that selfish and self-focused attitudes and behaviours makes people actually often less successful in the long run. The reasons for this are multifold but include that the best results are usually achieved by positive team dynamics, which foster a supportive and creative environment.^4,7 Additionally, positive and trusting relationships to other people (rather than interactions characterised by resentment, competition or suspicion) are good for our health.^4,5,7

You can foster positive relationships at work for example by performing small acts of kindness (doing a little favour for a co-worker or giving somebody a heart felt compliment), showing gratitude and thanking somebody if they have helped you, by not participating in (negative) gossip, having a compassionate and respectful attitude and by being generally mindful when communicating with others. Of course you may find it easier to connect with some colleagues than others, but it may be helpful decrease the frequency for negative work interactions. You may find some tips and hints for this in the posts No Need To Shout: Dealing With Difficult People 1 and No Need To Should: Dealing With Difficult People 2.

What can employers do?¹

Good employers strive to improve the well-being of their employees, not only to optimize productivity, but also to reduce staff turnover, which tends to be very costly. Businesses which are able to inspire their employees and make them enthusiastic about their work not only end up with happier employees, but they also tend to become more successful. This is primarily achieved by recognizing the strengths of individual workers, and allowing the employees to express these strengths.

Of course there is no one-fits-all ideal of an organization, as it very much depends on the field of work, and type of workplace. However, following organisational factors for high employee well-being have been identified:

• Providing opportunities for personal control: This is because we feel best if our work allows us to have some discretion over how to deal with problems, how to apply our skills best and if we have some input on outcomes.
• Allowing for a variety of tasks: As having a largely repetitive job with little variety can clearly be very boring and unsatisfying, allowing employees a greater degree of variety increases well-being.
• Supportive supervisors: Supervisors can make a big difference to employee well-being. Specifically supervisory who are approachable, who show an active interest in the well-being and development of their workers, and who provide regular feedback contribute to happiness at work. While regular positive feedback is most important, giving employees an idea on areas they may improve in is also helpful, as it provides the employee with orientation.
• Respect and status: Working in a highly respected position can increase our self-esteem. But it is not only about the jobs at the top. The best organisations are the ones, which treat all employees, including the lower status staff, with respect and which recognize the contribution each individual co-worker brings to the company.
• Fair (but not necessarily the best) pay and non-monetary benefits: Of course it is important that we are able to live a decent life on the money that we earn from our job- something more and more people are finding to be a challenge nowadays. So fair wages and salaries are a very important contributor to life satisfaction. However, as explained above, some people are less motivated by money than others. Once a certain minimum requirement is covered, some people find the benefits of a challenging and meaningful work, and a supportive team of colleagues more important than the financial compensation alone.
• Clear requirements and guidelines how to meet them: Businesses and organisations experienced as ‘good’ by their workforce are ones, which have clear policies and guidelines. These include job descriptions, adequate training and simple performance targets. Clear instructions on what is expected of us and how to achieve it are an important contributor to well-being at work, as this gives us easy-to-understand goals and targets. On the contrary, very loose structures and unclear targets are counterproductive as they tend to increase anxiety and insecurity of employees and decrease performance.

In summary, if we understand what is asked of us, we are aware of the special skills that we bring to the job, if we get positive feedback and experience our job as meaningful, receive social support from co-workers and have all the tools available to perform at our best, we are more likely to be satisfied and happy at work. If we merely look for the best salary but ignore our interests, skills and values, it is unlikely that we experience job satisfaction in the long run. If we want to improve our happiness at work, we should try to adopt a calling-orientation and commit to giving the very best to our job. Thinking about our work as something we enjoy doing rather than obligation may be very helpful.

Preview: As promised, next week is going to be all about how to increase our motivation, engagement and how to find flow.

References and further reading:

1. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

2. Seligman MEP. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Vintage Books; New York. 2006.

3. Wiens KJ. Leading Through Burnout: The Influence Of Emotional Intelligence On The Ability Of Executive Level Physician Leaders To Cope With Occupational Stress And Burnout [Dissertation]. University of Pennsylvania. 2016.

4. Seppälä E. The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. Piatkus; London, UK. 2016.­­

5. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

6. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

7. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

8. Pink DH. Drive: The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us. Canongate Books; Edinburgh, UK. 2009.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

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Living Forwards And Upwards- About Finding Hope And Optimism (And Knowing When Not To)

‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’

                                                              Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher)*                                                                                           

*The quote was kindly sent in by a blog follower!

Are you a ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’ person? Your answer is likely to very much depend on your general sense of hope and optimism. These two very closely related concepts help us to live our lives forwards and upwards. While an optimistic attitude is generally associated with a high level of well-being, there are some situations where it has been shown to be less helpful. I am admittedly leaning towards the ‘glass half empty’ attitude and believe that it has served my well in some situations. So today I would like to shed a little bit of light into the pros and cons of optimism.

The advantages of optimism

Of course, without optimism human kind would not have achieved anything. Optimism helps us to make great plans, and have dreams and hopes. More specifically, it has been shown that optimistic people enjoy following benefits:^1,4

• They experience life as more pleasurable.
• They are generally more confident, motivated, energetic and tend to be more proactive, persistent and committed when working towards goals. For this reason, they also often achieve more at work. They tend to be more productive (particularly under pressure), and do not get disheartened in jobs where setbacks are frequent and work-stress is high. They are also best suited for jobs that require initiative, persistence and the ability to ‘think big’.
• They are less likely to become depressed.
• They are on average in better physical health.
• Being optimistic also has something to do with self-control and the ability to change ourselves, which where were the topics of the last two posts. This is, because optimism is a great motivator, which helps us achieve the goal we have set ourselves, even when we experience setbacks.

What does it take to be an optimist?

Optimism is a mindset that is partially influenced by our personality, but it has been shown that an optimistic attitude is something, which can be learned.^1,2 Essentially, optimists have a strong sense of hope for the future even when facing difficult circumstances.^1-4 Instead of reacting with hopelessness or despair, optimists have the hope that that things may change, which inspires them to have faith and to plan for better days.³

In addition to the sense of hope, optimists have a different thinking or explanatory style compared to pessimistic people. Our explanatory style is about how we interpret or make sense of our life events.¹ The explanatory style has three key elements: pervasiveness (our view on how many aspects of our life are affected), permanence (our view on how long a situation will last) and personalization (our view on who has caused the situation). Here are some examples of optimistic explanatory styles when facing failure or adverse events:¹

• Pervasiveness: Optimists tend to identify a specific cause and only see specific aspects of their life affected. For example, if experiencing a rejection by someone else, they may think ‘This specific person does not like me’ rather than ‘I am unlikable’.
• Permanence: Optimists will generally think that the problem may be overcome relatively quickly. When becoming unemployed, an optimist may think ‘I am likely to get another job soon’ rather than ‘That’s it, I will never find work again’.
• Personalization: Optimistic people tend to externalize failure. This means that they put the blame for the difficult situation or mistake onto external events (or other people) rather than themselves. When making a mistake they may think ‘Well, I have been really tired and overworked’ rather than ‘It is all my fault’. On the other hand, when experiencing a success, optimistic people use an internalized explanatory style: they believe that the positive result is down to their ability.

Thinking that a problem is temporary, that there are specific causes for it, and that it is not our fault is of course bound to make us more hopeful and positive. Conversely, if we think that a problem is permanent or lasts for very long, that it is likely to affect all aspects of our life and that we are to blame for it, we are not only more likely to feel despair but we also tend to lose self-esteem.¹ This is very significant, as poor self-esteem can further exacerbate the situation.

Pessimism, learned helplessness and depression

People and animals who are put in an adverse situation, which they cannot do anything about and from which they cannot escape, they tend to become passive and give up;¹ In other words, such situations make us helpless, and we remain helpless even if the situation later changes and could be resolved. This state is known as learned helplessness. Only a minority of people do not become helpless, and these are the ‘natural optimists’.¹ As discussed above, these people think along the lines of ‘It is just the situation. It will pass and things will get better.’

So almost everybody can become pessimistic when facing really difficult situations, but there are different degrees of pessimism. If we have a very pessimistic general attitude to life, we may not even need extremely adverse events to trigger helplessness. We are also more likely to collapse under pressure, tend to stay helpless for a longer time and across more aspects of our life than people who are less pessimistic and who may regard failures as a temporary event causing only brief demoralisation.¹ In the worst case scenario, an extremely pessimistic thinking style (‘It is all my fault, it will always be like this, and all aspects of my life are ruined’) together with its associated learned helplessness and loss of self-esteem can result in depression (protracted learned helplessness).¹

So it is no surprise that pessimism is associated with a lower level of mental well-being, as it makes us feel bad about ourselves, our relationships and the world in general. In addition to the pessimistic explanatory style, there are further specific pessimistic mindsets and consequences:²

• Awfulising: Strong exaggeration about how negative an event or a person is.
• Exaggerated sense of rejection: Similar to awfulising, we may feel easily rejected or feel disproportionally hurt even with a minor rejection or criticism.
• Distress intolerance: People tend to underestimate their ability to cope and recover from difficult events.
• Negative self-fulfilling prophecies: Assuming a negative outcome often brings a negative outcome. This is due to a negative communication with others (somebody else may react negatively because we suggest that we are expecting a negative outcome), and because we may not bring in as much commitment into a given situation.

So what are the disadvantages of optimism?

What can there be wrong with optimism if it makes us more successful and feel good? Well, it appears that there can be quite significant disadvantages as well:

• It has been shown that optimists tend to distort their reality slightly towards the positive, introducing a positivity bias, where as pessimists often have a more realistic understanding of their ability to influence situations.¹ Unjustified optimism and hope (also called delusional optimism) can set us up for huge disappointments, as we may have unrealistically high expectations and be less aware of dangers and pitfalls in our plans. There are many examples from business and finance illustrating this point.⁵ Also, it has been shown that a high level of optimism in youth is a predictor of earlier death.⁶ So in any risky situation or where our decisions can have severe consequences, a healthy degree of pessimism may be helpful.
• Following from above point, there are areas where ‘mild pessimists’ perform better at work, as they are able to assess situations more realistically. These are typically positions requiring a high level of technical skills and where decisions can have far reaching consequences, so that the people need to know when to err on the side of caution rather than charging ahead.¹ Ideally, these jobs should also have lower time pressures and less frequent setbacks.
• Erosion of responsibility:¹ As adults, we are responsible for our actions and if we want to learn from failure and mistakes, we need to be able to get a realistic understanding to which degree we have contributed to a problem. We cannot achieve this if we habitually externalize failure, and put the blame on others or external circumstances. So if we want people to be responsible for what they do, then they need to have an internal explanation style.  But it is important to use this internal explanation style with a degree of self-compassion and making sure that our explanations are balanced, temporary and specific  (e.g. when failing an exam, you may think ‘I may not have studied hard enough on this occasion, but failing an exam is not the end of the world. I will review my exam technique and hopefully I will be more successful next time.’). One exception is depression, where externalization is encouraged, as depressed people usually take too much responsibility for bad events.

How to become a flexible optimist:

As there are clearly pros and cons to optimism, the key is to learn the skill of flexible optimism, so that you can choose to be optimistic whenever needed but be pessimistic when caution is asked for.¹

• As a general rule, moderate optimism should be used when the cost of a failure in a particular situation is not very high, which applies to the vast majority of situations in our daily lives. This could also be described as the expectation that the will manage to get through the day without accomplishing everything we want but probably the most important things; that we will not get everything we want but most things we need; that even when things don’t turn out 100%, that they will at least get better.⁴ But if a situation can have far reaching consequences, then a measured pessimistic approach is likely to be more helpful.¹
• Specific situations in which to use moderate optimism:¹
• When you are trying to achieve something (professional or private accomplishment).
• When you are worried about not feeling well about something (e.g. if you are struggling with depression or are finding it difficult to keep up your morale).
• When you are struggling with chronic illness.
• When you want to lead or inspire others.
• Specific situation when NOT to use optimism:¹
• When you are taking precautions for facing a truly risky and uncertain future.
• When making decisions at work or in private life which may have far reaching consequences.
• When initially talking to people who are facing significant hardship or problems, although you may be able to provide some hope and cautious optimism at a later point once you have established connection and trust. 
• Learning an optimistic thinking style:
• The key to optimism is to adapt our thinking style. As pessimistic thoughts are often extreme, exaggerated and self-punitive, the first step is to learn to dispute and replace these thoughts with less extreme and balanced thoughts.² It may help to do this in a structured way and in writing, particularly when facing a difficult situation.
• For example, we can bring to mind a specific problem/failure and identify our associated thoughts and current (pessimistic) interpretation. Then, we can critically examine our current thoughts, look for evidence for and against them, and replace them with more balanced and less exaggerated statements. It has been shown that this cognitive restructuring technique is a life skill, which can be learned.^1,7

In summary, optimism and pessimism can both be helpful when mastering different life situations and they are, to a degree, a choice we make. The secret is to know in which circumstances to apply a more optimistic or pessimistic mindset in order to try and get the best of both worlds. There is a great quote by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, summing up flexible optimism as a general approach to life: ‘Prepare for the worst; expect the best; take what comes.’ 

Preview: Next week we will finally start a short series of posts all around the topic of work and happiness.

References and further reading:

1. Seligman MEP. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Vintage Books; New York. 2006.

2. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

3. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

4. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

5. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

6. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

7. Pittman CM, Karle EM: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications; Oakland. 2015.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad! 

View and Save as PDF

Follow the Blog- http://followthegoodlifecampaign.blogspot.co.uk

Donations- https://www.justgiving.com/teams/thegoodlifecampaign

Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service