We are in the midst of the holiday season and joy is all around us—well, maybe not everywhere. You might feel joy at home, with friends, at church-but what about work? Can you say that you experience true joy at your job?
With mounting pressures to deliver and performance goals tied to revenue, it’s hard to feel joy when you’re stressed out. Even occupations that are typically focused on helping others, like nursing or teaching, are high-demand positions filled with growing responsibility, and employees are experiencing the joy of self-satisfaction less and less because of the decrease in resources and the increase in workload.
In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we are sharing five ways to feel more joy in your work, which was shared in a recent blog from confidence coach, Steve Errey.
1. Don’t be an island. When you’re unsatisfied with your job, there’s a tendency to withdraw from the people you work with. You are less likely to chat with them, because you don’t even want to be there. And you refrain from asking about them and how their day is going, because in the moment, you feel that you don’t care.
Time and time again, polls have shown that colleagues can be the top reason for leaving a job. So, disconnecting yourself from people will not only deprive you from human connections that can provide some much-needed relief, support and joy—including the possibility of friendship—but can also damage your happiness prospects and self-esteem.
Say “hey.” Be interested. Smile. And offer help, not because you have to, but because there’s more fun to be had when you’re part of a community.
2. Accept responsibility. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is raise your hand and take on responsibility, especially when you already have a full plate. When you side-step responsibility for the contribution you can make, you also side-step the inherent value you can receive from it.
More than a sense of a “job well done,” taking and accepting responsibility is the only way you can really see your contribution. Whether you played a small role in a big project or were leading a complex program of work, you have an impact. Whatever your contribution is, own it.
3. Don’t play games. Do you know why some politicians don’t give direct answers? Because they want to avoid responsibility (see above), they want to get their own way and they want everyone to like them. After all, they are elected depending on majority preference. This extraordinary combination of self-interest is also rampant in office politics. It’s all about the detail of your own agenda and never about joy. Don’t become occupied with image over value; focus on great work, not on your personal agenda.
4. Engage. Resisting, fighting or struggling against your job is only going to strip away any possibility of enjoyment. Sometimes work is hard, and you’d rather not be there. But even then, choose to struggle and that will be your experience. You don’t have to bury or ignore your dislikes, but you don’t have to let that stuff dictate what happens. Just engage with it. Embrace it. Throw yourself into it, and you’ll create an environment where joy can grow.
5. Follow the energy. It’s so hard to feel any kind of joy, pleasure or even satisfaction when you’re rundown, uninspired and unmotivated. Sometimes, you must go where the joy is. Ask to get involved in that project that you’ve been eyeing, because it’s looks like it might be something special. Apply a strength or talent (creativity, empathy, problem-solving) in your work rather than leaving those skills at the door. This might mean retraining, reskilling or moving into another area of the company that you find interesting.
Life’s too short not to experience joy in your work. It doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly joyful every day, and it shouldn’t be something that you expect, but joy is something you can feel more often if you only choose to make it a priority.
Source: Steve Errey is a confidence coach who helps new senior executives and vice presidents of companies to develop their self-confidence.
