“Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.” – Elbert Hubbard

A major part of my client pool is engaged with me because of the sorry state of their happiness as it relates to their everyday work. Of course, there are many reasons for their unhappiness, but in many cases I find that the real cause of their elusive relationship with happiness is of their own making.

Let me explain:

If you did a Pareto (the 80:20 rule) on my clients’ reasons for their unhappiness here is the rank-ordered breakdown (this is anecdotal based on my own sample size of over 6,000 clients of all flavors, careers, and many locations around the globe):

1. Bad boss (except when my client is a CEO)
2. Toxic culture/Too much politics
3. Boring job/Stultifying assignments
4. Back-stabbing colleagues; even team members that report to me
5. Long commute
6. Compensation disparity
7. Stuck without promotion
8. Little appreciation shown by the higher-ups
9. Lack of work-life balance
10. A culture of harassment (in general), even sexual harassment

If these are just the 20% of the reasons for anyone’s unhappiness then if you expand that list to cover the remaining, that list may include more trivial factors such as no free food, no game tables (Ping-Pong, etc.) in work areas, and other such perks. Thus there is no end to the list of such demands that can make people unhappy.

Changing your mindset (Metanoia):

What is interesting about all of these factors that cause one to be unhappy stem from their own inability to deal with each factor that contributes to their malady. The best way to overcome this feeling of hopelessness and to let one get inured to their everyday plight is to start at the top of you own list of factors and then figure out a strategy to deal with it in a constructive way.

Let me give an example:

One of my clients was miserable at her new job because her boss would always ride her, despite her hard work and her diligent efforts to please him. Her first Annual Performance Review (APR) was due and she was anxious, even jittery, because she knew she would receive a harsh review. In short, she was unhappy about her lack of control over her own situation. So, she called me to ask for my advice on how to deal with this burden she was carrying and how to react to the inevitable calumny from her boss that she was expecting during this meeting. She was beside herself and was at wits end due to her paralyzing fear from this inevitable doom that she felt was imminent.

My advice to her was simple: “Just listen to what the boss says, ask for clarification, without getting defensive about any statement that he may make, no matter how invidious, unjust, or hurtful, and let him speak without feeling that he is being challenged. In the cases where he is particularly piquant, pause and ask him to expand on it and see how he behaves. In most such cases if you let them go on without putting any brakes on his thoughts, he may say too much. Without saying a word just look at him askance, and see how he then backtracks. When he does this you’ve succeeded in cornering him, without saying much, but by using your body language to speak volumes.”

I continued, “Take notes and smile throughout the meeting as appropriate, and, as the meeting ends, thank him for his time and insights, and set up a time for getting back to him in response to his feedback to close the loop with an action plan for the next APR.” I then said, “Now, before you hang-up your phone after talking with me, imagine and visualize that you are doing this and conquer the moment!”

When she internalized this advice her whole attitude towards the review changed and what she imagined, as impending doom was no longer weighed on her mind or even mattered. She was able to relax and face the APR drill with a smile on her face. Actually, the discussion was not as bad and her boss complimented her for her diligent efforts and braving through some of the more challenging times that they had faced during the year. What made the whole discussion more palatable was she never once challenged the boss when he said things to her about her “missteps” and her “slip-ups.”

So, what is the lesson from this episode and similar ones that we deal with every day that define our contours of happiness? What are some of the rules we can follow to make ourselves happy in our everyday work life?

Here are my suggestions:

1. Rather than merely resigning yourself to your fate of being unhappy at work make a list and audit the reasons for each item’s contribution to your unhappiness.
2. Rank-order that list in terms of both, each item’s contribution to your unhappiness and the difficulty of dealing with it to change things. For example, if Bad boss is your top item (1.0) and the difficulty of dealing with what you have to do to change your interactions with your boss is also 1.0, then this item is the most important for you to deal with and attack as you wage your battle to stamp out the reasons for your unhappiness. On the other hand another factor (say boring job or stultifying assignment) is on this list and its rank is #3/10 (0.7) and the difficulty with which you can make a change (make the assignment more interesting by doing something to enrich its outcome) is low (0.4—relatively easy to change if you put your mind to it) then this factor has a weight of 0.28, a relatively easy change to make.
3. If you now complete this list with this analysis and weight (use your own judgment) you can decide if you want to start attacking the factors with the lowest weight first or the highest one first. If you start at the bottom you can make easy wins and build your confidence going up OR you can start with the most difficult or challenging ones from the top and make a clean sweep of the lower ones. Either way, you’ll win.
4. For each item you’ll have to confront someone and make your case to institute the change. Finding the right script and words that will work for you is not always easy. There are a couple of good books worth a read when confronting such situations: One is Crucial Conversations (Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny) and the other, Nonviolent Communication (Marshall B. Rosenberg and Deepak Chopra). Reading these two books (and others) will empower you to have these difficult conversations and conquer your fears of having such a dialog to benefit you and to get what you want.
5. Make a choice to he happy in what you do and stamp out the forces that bring down your happiness. Happiness is a choice and not something that happens to you without your ability to control it. Remember, no can make you unhappy without your consent.

From now on make a decision to be happy and follow this guidance to get rid of your unhappiness and change the way you do your job and live your life! You’ll live longer and people will want to be around you!

Good luck!