How to be happy at work

While we're living, the dreams we have as children fade away - Oasis

"When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'HAPPY'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life" - John Lennon

The above Lennon story is rightly well known and often shared when people discover it for the first time. For me, it cannot be shared enough and is even more relevant in today's world of uncertainty. Perhaps every employer should be made to have it on their walls to remind their people that the number one aim in life is to be happy.

Why is it so relevant now? There is an entire industry focussed on creating engagement and rightly so. Organisations have woken up to the importance of an engaged workforce and invest in engagement surveys and teams and individuals who have organisational responsibility for engagement. The truth is that we're still nowhere near where we need to be when it comes to true engagement.

The Gallup Global Poll for 2018 reports that: -

• 80% of workers don't feel that they can be at their best at work
• 70% of workers are not engaged at work

Pretty damning statistics when you consider the focus and investment on engagement that is now prevalent across the world's organisations.

"Please all and you will please none" - Aesop

What I want you to consider here is - are we missing the point? What engagement really means is happiness i.e. do we wake up in the morning wanting to go to work? Or are we happy about how we will spend our day ahead and who we will spend it with at work?

So if engagement = happiness; why is it down to organisations to provide it?

Take another look at the title of this article. When we're children and are asked 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' or 'what are your dreams?', we don't say things like: -

• "I want NASA to make me an Astronaut"
• "I want the NHS to make me a Doctor"
• "I want an engineering company to make me an Engineer"
• "I want an Art School to make me an Artist"

What we actually say is "I want to be an Astronaut" or even more boldly we say "I am going to be an Artist". As children we take full responsibility for our dreams and want to make them a reality ourselves.

Yet when we do grow up, it seems like we expect our employer or even our boss to make us happy. I know I spent a chunk of my formative years expecting that. Before realising that I choose happiness for myself. Because if we wait for others to engage us and make our dreams a reality, we will be waiting a very long time!

This isn't anybody's fault - hey, you can't please all the people all the time - and everyone has their own ambitions, opinions and desires for their career and their lives. Every organisation is full of people wanting different things and have different things that make them happy. When you multiply that by 10's, 100's and even 1,000's in some organisations, is it any wonder that engagement and happiness levels are not where we would universally like them to be?

"Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present" - Jim Rohn

When I think back to my earliest careers conversations, I know that I definitely didn't say "I want be ......: -

A Warehouse Operative

A Cashier

A Payroll Administrator

A Payroll Supervisor

A Project Manager

A Service Delivery Manager

An Administration Manager

A Training Academy Manager

A Development Partner

Head of L&D

A Coach

A Facilitator

An Inspiration Speaker"

Yet these are all of the things that I have been or am. Nothing wrong with any of those jobs and many people are very happy and successful in all of those roles. Are any of them my dream? NO!

Whilst I can't 100% tell you what I said to the 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' question, I can tell you about a time when I was authentically me and identified what my true dream is...

The first time I was asked the Annual Appraisal Identikit 'what motivates you Tim?' question; without thinking I responded very quickly with "being happy". I remember thinking 'where did that come from!' and also feeling immense pride at finally having some self-awareness (I was a lot younger then!!!) of what really motivates me.

More shocked by my response was my boss whose face was suddenly overcome with a perplexed look. After some silence, they replied with "what about at work?".

"The only reason to get out of bed is to have a good time. All the time"

I'm not the only one who had a somewhat underwhelming introduction to the wonderful world of performance conversations. And I know I won't be the only one who had a similar response from their boss when speaking honestly and openly about what we really want - happiness.

This is something that comes up time and again when I work with organisations and I am often shocked by people's reticence or ignorance towards the goals they are setting for themselves. Or not setting them for themselves as the case may be!

When you get the opportunity to set your performance and development goals - take it! Your KPI's and SLA's etc. are what you are employed to do. And are often not achieved due to circumstances outside of your control.

Somebody, somewhere will have started this year with Thomas Cook as their major client and no doubt had some sort of target or objective set based on business earned from Thomas Cook. Imagine their end of year review when they discuss their goals and simply agree that 'you didn't achieve them because Thomas Cook went bust'. This may sound a bit facetious and it is also very real!

How many people are sacrificing their true opportunity to be happy at work by not setting their own goals? Our own true one and only goal is to be happy. And of course, achieving goals that we set for ourselves contribute hugely to being happy. No-one gets out of bed to be miserable at work!

"Set your own goals or someone else will set them for you and then you are left living someone else's dream"

Be clear on what you want from your job. And I mean absolutely clear. This then enables you to identify what you want and need to do to get what you want. Most importantly, this is the best way to make this decision for yourself and not rely on others to give you what you want or expose yourself to others telling you what you want!

When getting clear on what you want from your role, it's important to remember that it is your choice. It's got nothing to do with anyone else because it is what you want. Sure, you should tell other people and ask them for their support. The starting point must come from you so you can stick to it. And get what you want to make you happy and achieve your dreams.

People not being clear with themselves on what they want from their job is a huge contributor to lack of engagement and sends them own the wrong path in terms of trying to get what they want. Because they don't really know what they want! This makes them feel undervalued and causes strain in their relationship with their boss and colleagues.

When we are clear on what we want, we can choose how we behave and the attitude we have in work. Some classic examples that I see all the time are below including how we can choose to behave when we are clear with ourselves on what we actually want: -

• 'I just want to come to work, do my job and go home' - come into work and do just that then! Don't moan about things outside of your control or when other people get rewarded or promoted. Be positive, support others and remind yourself that you are getting what you want - that's what will make you happy
• 'I want to be promoted' - the best way to get a new job is to perform at your best in your current job. Do just that and make sure your line manager knows about your ambition. Show an interest in what they do and set yourself goals to take on extra responsibility and gain exposure to the responsibilities and skills required to be successful in the job that you want to be promoted to
• 'I want to be recognised and get feedback' - make sure that the person whom you want to recognise you knows what you want recognition for and specifically what you would like their feedback on. If you don't tell them; they won't know! And then get on with doing what you want to be recognised for. Really well and with a positive mindset

Workplaces are full of things and people that will piss us off. Be clear on what you want and what will make you happy and spend your time and effort on working towards and achieving that. No organisational engagement initiative will ever give you that warm, fuzzy feeling that you get from doing what you want to do.

"We'd achieve more if we chase the dream instead of the competition" - Simon Sinek

To achieve happiness, we must behave in a way that represents how we want others to behave. It always starts with you and happiness comes taking responsibility to be you. Nothing else - just be you.

"To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections" - Simon Sinek

I recently had the pleasure of working with a group from an organisation where there are clearly some cultural and engagement issues i.e. there isn't any! Within this group, there was a particular individual who was doing everything not to engage with the activities and seemed to take pride in bringing the energy and enthusiasm down to her level (they will stay known as 'her' or 'she' because quite frankly that's all they deserve!).

As the day progressed, the group started to make some real progress in identifying what they could do to improve their own situations and adopt positive habits to make their experiences at work more of the ones that make them happy. Still 'she' refused to get involved even ignoring some of her colleagues asking for her contribution when completing an activity.

As the group presented their ideas, finally 'she' decided to share something and pronounced to everyone "that's all well and good but I still think will people talk to me like shit". The group were clearly taken aback by this and some were obviously holding back on what they really wanted to say to her.

I saw an opportunity to raise 'her' self-awareness and the exchange went as follows: -

• Me: "OK, thank you for your contribution. You're entitled to your opinion. I would suggest that what we've created here will make a difference as it puts you all in control. Just to build on what you've said, can I ask you something?"
• Her: "Yes, if you want" accompanied with a little smirk to an awkward feeling colleague because of course she couldn't make eye contact with me!
• Me: "Is how you've behaved today, a fair reflection of how you normally behave in work?"
• Her: "What do you mean?", still not looking at me!
• Me: "For most of today, you have demonstrated the following behaviours - very little eye contact with the person talking to you, very little desire to engage with your colleagues, no positive or constructive contribution to problem solving, very little respect to others talking, you seem to be much more interested in what's on your phone than the other human beings around you and being obstructive to others coming up with ideas to make things better for everyone. Is that how you normally behave?"
• Finally she made eye contact with me at this point, probably because she was suddenly aware that all of her colleagues' eyes were placed firmly on her, and hesitated to respond before saying.. "I don't think I've done all of those things but if you mean, have I been myself today, then yeah I have. What's the point on being different?"
• Me: "I appreciate your honesty. However, what I would say, is that if you behave towards your colleagues in the same way that you've behaved towards me today then I'm not surprised that people talk to you like shit"
• Her: "You can't say that. You've only seen me in here, you don't know anything about me"
• Me: "I did just say that and everything I said is based on how you've behaved in here and because you haven't told me anything about you. How do you want other people to talk to you?"
• Her: "With respect and not to jump down my throat. To listen to me"
• Me: "Fantastic. I think you're absolutely right to expect that from others. What do you need to do to achieve that?"

At this point she could clearly see where this was going and so could her colleagues and they stepped in to give her some feedback including their personal experiences with her and they encouraged her to change how she behaves by explaining why they had behaved towards her at particular times in response to how she spoke to them or reacted to them when they approached her.

This led to her accepting responsibility for her behaviour and explaining why she did this was because of an experience at a previous employer that she had brought into this organisation and was judging others based on that experience. Her opening up enabled her to apologise for this and 'relieve' herself of the burden she was placing on herself which in turn was affecting her relationships with her colleagues and preventing her from being happy at work.

All I did in this situation was facilitate a conversation and provide some feedback. This is not always available in the workplace so we must take responsibility for our own behaviour to drive us getting what we want and achieving happiness - #italwaysstartswithyou

"If you don't like someone telling you what you're doing - don't do it"

We always choose how we behave and the way we behave has the biggest impact on the relationships we build with other people and therefore, our ability to get what we want - to be happy.

Do these three things to achieve happiness in your role: -

1. Write down exactly what you want from you job
2. Write down what you need to do to achieve what you want including how to behave and the relationships you need to build. Then do it. Every day.
3. Be clear on what actually makes you happy at work. And then do more of it!

Everyone needs a dream, not just children, make sure you don't lose yours or start living the dreams of others just because they employ you - #italwaysstartswithyou

"We have to dream. How else will we make a future that does not yet exist?" - Simon Sinek