The Secrets to Happiness at Work: How to Choose and Create Purpose and Fulfillment in Your Work (A Personal Development Book to Avoid Burnout in Your Career)

INTRODUCTION

Happiness at work may seem elusive or out of reach at the moment because—let’s face it—things have been tough. But there is hope. Lots of it, in fact.

The last few years have encompassed one of the most significant reinventions of work in history—and likely in our lifetimes. The landscape of work has changed significantly with new options for where, when, and how work happens. But perhaps even more important, people are thinking more consciously than ever about why they work, with whom they work, and for whom they work. People are demanding more from their work experience, more from their employers, and more from their coworkers.

Because work is so central, these shifts mean a lot for our lives and how we live them, including how we spend our time, what we prioritize, and how we derive meaning, fulfillment, and joy.

We have the opportunity for new ideas and insights. If the size of a transformation is associated with the amount of new learning it can generate, surely our brilliance will be magnified manifold as we emerge and embrace this new topography for how we make sense of work as a part of life.

Classic wisdom suggests, Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. For many, this may sound too good to be true. After all, work is…well…work. It is often thought of as drudgery—as something that must be done to pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and pay for the other things in life that matter more.

But this concept of work leaves so much out.

In actuality, work itself can—and should—be a source of joy. It can offer the opportunity for purpose and meaning, for challenge and learning, and for great friendships. We deserve nothing less, and a shift in our expectations can make a big difference in terms of creating this sense of fulfillment.

The Importance of a Joyful Work Experience

A great work experience is important, partly because it influences so many aspects of our lives. If we spend 80 percent of our time at work, simple math suggests that it will have an outsize influence on our lives. But as the line blurs between being on and off the clock, work continues to influence our personal lives. According to the American Psychological Association, it spills over, and in my own research in Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work, I found work-life challenges affect both men and women, both mothers and fathers, and all generations. In addition, work-life challenges are not reserved for those who are married or those with children. The work-life conundrum is something that almost everyone goes through at some point in their lives.

Our experiences at work matter to our lives at work but also to our lives in general. It’s impossible to share our best selves with our families, friends, and life partners if we’re struggling with incivility or high levels of stress at work.

One study in Occupational Health Science found work stress tends to negatively affect our sleep.

Email also has an effect. A study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior focused on incivility and found that when messages are rude or unnecessarily urgent, employees tend to experience adverse physical symptoms, negative emotions, and spillover of stress they bring home to their partners.

Additional research reported by the American Psychological Association found that stress at work also affects parenting. Mothers who experience incivility at work tend to feel less effective overall, resulting in more strict, authoritarian parenting, which in turn correlates with adverse effects for their children.

Another research effort at the Wharton School found that if parents are unavailable to children because of long hours or work distractions, children experience negative outcomes. And just having your device within sight can cause you to lose focus on the people around you, according to a study by the University of Texas. Truly being present with the people around you sends a message you care and they are your priority, and distraction can degrade the interaction and the relationship.

When work lacks joy, it can have far-reaching ripple effects. The opposite is also true. When work goes well, it can have impressive positive implications for the rest of our lives.

Troubled times can cause us to look at things differently, and new and expanded points of view are generally a good thing. In fact, the roots of the word emergency come from the Latin emergere, meaning to rise up or out. Especially now, in the new landscape of work, joy is critically important to our overall well-being. True happiness and joy are greater and richer than just contentment. They are based on internal perspectives rather than external conditions and tend to be more long-lasting. Joy and deep happiness are related to feelings of awe and peace, but they are also multifaceted. We can experience joy as a result of tough challenges or painful conditions that we have survived. Most of all, joy is something we are empowered to create. Far from something we simply hope to receive or for which we wait passively, joy is an experience we can embrace, foster, catalyze, and cultivate.

What’s New

This updated edition includes plenty of new ideas to help you create the conditions for happiness.

What it (really) means to be happy at work

How work can be a source of joy

Whether work should be your identity (or not!)

How to rethink self-care

Stories about people who took action to create the conditions for happiness

Key ideas you can put into practice for your own joyful work

This fresh new material—in addition to the previous substance of the book—will keep you moving forward to create happiness in your work and joy in your life.

Let’s start now!

Bonus Chapter

CHOOSING WORK: THE SURPRISING CASE FOR WORK AS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS

We’re in the midst of a great rethink about work, with work at the forefront of our consideration as individuals and as societies. We’ve proven we can work from anywhere, and all over the world, we’re reimagining how work gets done and what it means to us—including its priority in our lives.

Almost everyone must work to support themselves or their families, but people are increasingly selective about the organizations and leaders they choose to work for and the extent to which they invest their time, energy, and effort. People want and deserve great work, and their criteria for what constitutes great work, where they can have positive, fulfilling experiences, are consistently increasing, escalating, and expanding.

At the same time, there is an open assault on work. The popular press and social media glorify quiet quitting and bare minimum Mondays. At their best, these are appropriate ways to manage boundaries and ensure we’re not overextending or burning out. But more often, they undermine the benefits of work. We all have an instinct to matter, and work is an essential way we express skills and talents and contribute to our communities.

Specific work situations may not be ideal, but by vilifying or denigrating work generally, we miss the opportunity to empower ourselves, influence for the better, and embrace its positive impacts on life. We can create the conditions for happiness at work and advocate that leaders and organizations do the same. We can hold space for healthy boundaries and have fulfilling experiences on both sides.

Work will never go back to the way it was, and this is probably a good thing, but we can learn from where we’ve been and remind ourselves about the rewards of work going forward.

What Is Happiness Anyway?

Happiness is one of the most sought-after experiences: We want joy in our personal lives, delight in our work, and bliss in our relationships. But happiness can also be elusive, and it’s unrealistic to think you can achieve total happiness every day throughout all aspects of your life.

A better approach is to consider what happiness really means and reflect on how you experience it, then create the conditions for more of those situations to take hold.

THE SPILLOVER EFFECT

Despite how elusive it can be, happiness is one of the most universally recognized emotions. Research published in the Psychological Bulletin found when people interact across cultures, happiness is one of the most familiar emotions and the one that tends to give people a sense of unity and camaraderie.

In addition, happiness is something people experience across life circumstances. It’s not limited to a container of work or life. When you’re happy with your work, you tend to experience greater levels of happiness in the rest of your life. The opposite is also true—when you’re happier outside work, you tend to have a spillover effect and perceive greater happiness with your work. As a result, when you create the conditions for happiness at work, it will pay off for you in the rest of your life. And ironically, when you’re intentional about the time you spend outside work and do things that bring you joy there, you’ll also reap the benefits in your job. You can take action and be intentional, and it will matter across the boundaries of your life and work.

HAPPY EXPERIENCES

But with all the focus on happiness at work, it’s important to know that great work experiences are more complex and nuanced than having a sense of pure euphoria every day. You can have ups and downs, good days and bad days (or weeks!), and still have an overall sense of joy and satisfaction with your work.

No choice will result in nirvana. Whether it’s the type of work you do, the hours you work, or the organization you work for, every choice is a set of circumstances. Some will be terrific, and others not so much. Every day, you make small decisions to engage or detach in terms of your work. As you do, it’s wise to be intentional about your approach and reflective about what happiness at work actually is.

Here’s what I would recommend you consider, alongside some tips on how to nurture joy.

HAPPINESS IS DEDICATION

When we’re happy at work, we experience dedication—that feeling of working hard and committing to our efforts. When you persevere in solving a problem or when you are conscientious about pointing out an issue and taking initiative to resolve it, you’re dedicated. When you are loyal to a team or feel a level of allegiance to the organization, you’re experiencing dedication.

In a study of five thousand people by the Muse, an online career platform, quiet quitting was found to have a negative effect on happiness and brain health, with people suffering from worsening memory, focus, sleep, mood, productivity, and creativity. It seems detaching from your role, giving up, or failing to do your fair share results in deterioration of well-being. It’s better to commit and dedicate yourself. And if you’re not happy, it’s best to take action and make another choice rather than simply surrendering.

Even if you’re not in an idyllic role at the moment, do your best, and invest in bringing your best. By doing so, you’ll feel more empowered and in control, but you’ll also build your credibility and your relationships with others who know they can count on you.

HAPPINESS IS IMMERSION

When you feel greater happiness at work, you also tend to feel immersed. You get going on