Page 29 - FDCC Flyer Winter 2023

FDCC Pillars
Three Practical Ways To Feel Happier At Work
by Rebecca Morrison
Rebecca Morrison
We’ve all heard the old adage – “choose a job you love and you’ll never work
a day in your life.” I think we can all agree that while it
need to inject quiet reflection into your day anytime you feel stressed. (You might if it’s a source of joy for you – but you also might not). What I am suggesting is that you take
the time to find your own essential sources of joy and inject those.
Challenge
Find your essential sources of joy
To find your essential sources of joy, all you need to do is follow these simple steps:
a. Ask yourself: What makes me happy? Write down the first three things that come up (no editing, no judgment).
b. Take one of those things and ask yourself: What about this thing makes me happy? Write down that answer.
c. Take your answer from the step above and ask yourself: what about that makes me happy?
d. Repeat this at least 6 mores times, or until your answer doesn’t change.
e. Review what you’ve written down. Somewhere in those answers you’ve got one or more essential sources of joy. You will know you have it when it
is something that you could literally inject into any day of your life.
You can repeat this for the other items on your list in the first step. Then you can apply those essential sources of joy liberally to your life – including at work.
might be true that if you land in the perfect job, with the perfect boss, the perfect coworkers, the perfect clients, and the perfect projects, it might actually not feel like work. But I also think we can all agree that there is no such thing as perfection.
So, for those of us who live in the real world where our job sometimes isn’t perfect, here are a few things you can do to be happier at work (regardless of where you are working).
1 Figure out what makes you tick
Most of us don’t know what really drives our happiness. We might have a vague idea, but few people have taken the time to do the intentional and deep work of really understanding what makes them tick.
I recently asked a coaching client of mine who was struggling in their current job: what makes you happy? After some back-and-forth, she answered “vacation.” I bet you can relate. Most of us like vacation. But because I’ve found that the reasons why are varied. I asked my client, “what about vacation makes you happy?” She answered, “I like having a break from work.” That made sense. Her job was stressful and difficult. But we didn’t stop
there. I asked, “what is about having a break from work that makes you happy?” Her ultimate response
“I really appreciate having the
time and space to just be with my thoughts. I don’t get many breaks for quiet reflection, when I do, I really start to appreciate everything I’ve accomplished, and I can better understand what I need to prioritize from there. I just really enjoy it.”
Perhaps you can relate. Often,
we move through life at a million miles an hour, not stopping to
take stock of where we have been, where we are, or where we are going. But here’s the magic in the exercise I used with my client –
we identified one of her essential sources of her joy: quiet reflection. Something, that when she needed a little happiness in her day, she could inject at will. I challenged her over the next several weeks to try deploying “quiet reflection” when she felt particularly stressed and overwhelmed. She did and found that as a result she was happier, less stressed, and felt more in control. Let’s be clear, I am not saying you
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