Happy Hour is 9 to 5 (19 page)

But don’t wait for others to do it for you. As Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead put it:

“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

9. how to make yourself happy at work

There are certainly enough things to choose from. Should you read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? Or the Eighth Habit? Maybe the Getting Things Done system is right for you? Is coaching what you need? Maybe some anti-stress training. Or conflict mediation. Career counselling? Or developing your communication skills, your presentation skills or your…

The truth is that your options are almost endless — and most of them are pretty good. But it’s better to start somewhere else, with something even simpler. Start by making yourself happy at work.

This chapter of the book will take you through the necessary steps. The tools provided here are some that I developed for use in our workshops, and they have been used by many people in many different companies.

The exercises work really well — but only if you actually do them. If you just skim through and formulate the answers in your head, it won’t make much of a difference. If you set aside some time to think and write down the answers, new thoughts and ideas may come to you.

Here are the steps you will go through:

1. How happy are you at work?
   
2. What makes you happy at work?
   
3. Visualise your goal.
   
4. Know your why.
   
5. Decide on happiness.
   
6. Should I stay or should I go?
   
7. Make a happy plan.
   

You can find worksheets for each of the exercises at the book’s website at
www.pinetribe.com/alexander/exercises

How happy are you at work?

This is where the book could have included a 200-question survey that you could fill out, add up your score and go “Yes, I’m 78.4% happy!” But seriously, you already know how you feel about your job, don’t you?

When you consider everything that’s good or bad about your job and the people you work with, I’m betting that you already know well enough which of these three categories you fall into:

• Argh! — I hate my job and would rather walk a mile across broken glass than ever go into work again.
  
• Meh!
  ³⁰
  — My job is kinda OK. I can take it or leave it. Not too bad, not too good.
  
• Yay!  — I love my job. It’s so great, I would pay to work there. Please don’t tell them I said that last part…
  

Take a moment to rate your current job. Where are you at, right now?

In most workplace surveys, 10% say they hate their jobs and 10-20% love it. The rest, between 70 and 80% of employees, are somewhere in the middle.

If you’re at Argh I can only advise you to do something about it as soon as humanly possible.

If you’re already at Yay you can still decide to make your job even more enjoyable. Or, even better, choose to spread some of that work happiness to the other people at work.

Meh is dangerous because it’s comfortable. It’s easy to accept a nice, safe, slightly fun, slightly boring, slightly unpleasant job situation. Don’t! I’m deadly serious here. Don’t accept it — push for Yay. When you’re at Meh, you’re only a shadow of what you can be. You’re using only a small fraction of yourself. You’re not infecting people around you with your energy and happiness. You’re not coming home every day with the knowledge that “I rocked!”

Don’t settle for Meh, decide to get to Yay — then figure out what it takes to get there.

What makes you happy at work?

Think back to a situation where you were happy at work. It can be at your current job or at a previous job. It’s important that you think back to a specific situation. Not just, “Man, working for Acme Inc. was great,” but, say, “Man, that time at Acme two years ago where we completed the Hansen project and had a huge party — that was great.” It doesn’t have to be your best work experience ever — just a pretty good one.

This can be surprisingly difficult. Most people have an easier time remembering bad experiences, and thinking back to the good days takes a little work. If you can’t find a single, specific nice experience at work, think back to your school days, or maybe to something you’ve done outside of work, say as a community volunteer, or at your children’s school.

Take your time and find a specific situation where you were happy at work. Write it down. Then find two more and write them down too.

For each of the three good experiences you’ve remembered, write down your answers to each of the questions below. And to make it even more effective you can get together with a friend, and interview each other using the questions. The interviewer asks the questions and writes down the answers, then you switch over.  You can download Exercise 1: What makes you happy at work? at the book’s website at
www.pinetribe.com/alexander/exercises

Ask these questions for each of your three happy work experiences and write down the answers:

1. What happened? What were the circumstances? Who was involved? What did you do?
   
2. How was it? What did it feel like? Why was it a good experience?
   
3. What did it do to the quality of your work?
   
4. How were your relations with co-workers, customers, suppliers and/or others at work?
   
5. How did it affect you outside of work?
   
6. Write down at least five things that made this experience possible. Which people, values, practices, tools, etc., were involved and helped make this great experience happen?
   
7. Write down at least five things from this experience that would you like to have more of in the future to make you happier at work.
   

What you’ve just done is an exercise based on Appreciative Inquiry, an excellent tool based on the idea that the best way to create positive change is to focus on what worked previously and what you want more of in the future, rather than on all the earlier problems you want to avoid. This exercise is great for a number of reasons:

1: You remember previous good experiences at work

It’s so easy to think back to that lousy boss you had three years ago, but surprisingly difficult to think back to that great team you worked with last year. Most of us tend to take good experiences for granted and to focus more on problems, annoying people and negative situations. This exercise trains your ability to also remember good experiences — an ability that is crucial if you want to be happy at work.

2: You dig up real-life experiences

When you examine the question, “What makes me happy at work?” it’s tempting to make a long list of all the traditional trappings of a good job. You know the kind of thing: a raise, a promotion, a bonus, etc. These are things we have been taught to strive for — not necessarily the things that will really make us happy.

This exercise avoids that trap because it looks back to specific situations where you were happy. These things are highly likely to work again in the future.

3: It’s fun and energising

It may be difficult at first, but it’s also a lot of fun to think back to the good experiences at work. Thinking back only to the bad experiences makes you feel sad and powerless. Thinking back to the good stuff gives you more energy and confidence in a positive work future for yourself.

4: You focus on what you want — not what you want to avoid

You can’t choose your future work life based on what you want to avoid, because:

1. We tend to get more of what we focus on. If we focus on the things we want to avoid, we unfortunately tend to get more of those.
   
2. There are an almost infinite number of things to avoid at work. You can always add more to the list. Finding out what will make you happy is much easier and more manageable.
   
3. Even if you managed to avoid all the things that make you unhappy at work, that still doesn’t mean you’ll be happy — it only means you won’t be unhappy. In other words, avoiding the bad stuff can take you to Meh, but no further. To go to Yay you need to look at what makes you happy at work.
   

The next step is to figure out what work and life will be like once you reach your goal and become happy at work.

Visualise your goal

In this exercise you will visualise what a working day is like when you’re happy at work. This exercise is important for three reasons:

1. Knowing what your goal will look, sound and feel like gives you a specific target to aim for.
   
2. Knowing just how great achieving your goal will feel gives you the energy to take action.
   
3. You focus on what you want to achieve (not on what you want to avoid), which programs your subconscious mind to achieve it.
   

Imagine you’re at Yay — you really, really love your job. It makes you grow, it lets you learn, it gives you victories and challenges in the right measure. You wake up in the morning totally fired up about work. You don’t hit that snooze button on your alarm clock five times in a row because you’re just too excited about the workday ahead of you.

You have a great boss and great co-workers. Your job is interesting and fun. Every morning you come in excited; every afternoon you leave proud. You make a difference working at something meaningful. You help people around you. You are appreciated both for what you do and for who you are. Your customers love you and rave about you.

Imagine feeling this amazingly good about your work. Really put yourself there, and feel what you would feel in this situation. Now answer the following questions, as if you’re already totally happy at work.

1. When you get up in the morning, how do you feel? What emotions do you have?
   
2. What are you thinking on your way to work?
   
3. As you walk in the door at work, what feeling comes over you?
   
4. When you greet your co-workers, what does your voice sound like? What do their voices sound like?
   
5. What expressions are on their faces? On your face?
   
6. What does your workplace sound like? Which sounds dominate?
   
7. You run into a problem at work. How do you react?
   
8. You have a disagreement with a co-worker. How do you handle it?
   
9. Your boss drops by to greet you as you work. What does their voice sound like? What is the expression on their face? How do you feel after your boss dropped by?
   
10. A co-worker asks for your help. How do you respond?
    
11. Your team does some amazingly great work. How do you feel? How do you celebrate it?
    
12. When you get home from work, how do you feel? How does your body feel?
    
13. What do you think about your next workday?
    

You can download a worksheet called Exercise 2: Visualise your goal on
www.pinetribe.com/alexander/exercises

Know your why

The next step is to ask yourself why your life at and outside of work will be better once you’re happy at work. I’m sure that if you take a good look, it’s clear that being happy at work will improve your life immensely. Knowing this will give you the motivation to take action.