Fall in love with a job you don’t even like, in 3 steps

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Even if you have been successful in keeping your job, it has probably changed significantly. And change doesn’t always mean for the better.

This statistic means that half of the people you work with every day lead professional lives that Henry David Thoreau would have described as “quiet despair.”

Many of us also needlessly confuse our self-esteem with our careers. The misfortune of our work becomes the misfortune of life, which raises the stakes.

Wouldn’t it be nice to stop envying those who love their jobs and become one of those people?

There are plenty of career tips on how to ask for a raise, get promoted, deal with a difficult boss, deal with others, and more. But very little addresses the fundamental question of your happiness at work on a daily basis.

The factors that can tip the scales one way or the other for happiness at work can come down to our innate desire for three things: control over our lives, positive daily relationships, and the joy and meaning of. how we spend our waking time (half of which is at work, for most people).

The way to integrate our need for control, connection and meaning – while being on the clock – is to “create tasks”. It’s the term used by Amy Wrzesniewski, psychologist at Yale University, and Jane E. Dutton, professor of business administration and psychology at the University of Michigan. It’s about “taking control or reframe some of these factors,” they wrote in a study on the subject.

The problem is not the work

People who don’t like their jobs – that is, the majority of us – can suffer and complain on a day-to-day basis. They may even be chronically stressed, a condition that has serious medical consequences, ranging from hypertension and cardiovascular disease to decreased mental health, according to a meta-analysis of studies from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School.

There are also factors related to happiness at work over which we have little control, such as your boss. About half of people who quit did so “to get away from their manager,” according to a recent Gallup poll. Salaries are also important.

But we usually don’t decide who our boss is, and they can suddenly change (for good or bad). As for money, studies have shown that it only has a short-term effect on happiness.

Change, the double-edged sword worth mastering

So that leaves you with a powerful recourse: to take matters into your own hands.

Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s research focused on three main factors of greater job satisfaction that fall within your sphere of influence: 1) Refine your work to add things you like and remove things you don’t. not like. 2) Build better relationships with your colleagues. 3) Reframe your work to add meaning and purpose.

Wrzesniewski has distilled them well on the excellent social science podcast The Hidden Brain. Their research is not just theoretical. They wrote an instruction manual on how to do crafts.

And – in my way, less scientific and more DIY – here are exercises that I practiced to get in the best shape of happiness at work.

1) hack your work

Start by making three lists. (Do this over a nice cup of coffee or tea in a quiet place, during working hours, even if it’s in your own living room.) A list has all the things you currently love about your job. , large and small. The second lists all the hassles and headaches of your job, from small to systemic.

And the third list of things you wish you could do in your job that you are not currently doing, even if they have nothing to do with what you get paid for. You can add “take more solo brainstorming coffee breaks” if you want.

Now it’s time to systematically attack the items on the second two lists. Go for a few easy wins first. Some things you can start adding and subtracting today; others can take months. Some may require buy-in from your boss (who will hopefully be able to increase your happiness at work), but many won’t. Some changes will be directly related to your job, while others will simply be ways to increase happiness or reduce stress during your stay.

Everything is progress.

Be imaginative with these lists. Creativity is in itself a booster of well-being. Writing this column of wisdom is something that I have added to my work. It has business benefits that I can easily express, but it also makes me happy (and adds meaning to my job). I also try to work in exercise during the working day, while running during lunch or in a meeting where I just have to listen. Again this has the benefit of reducing stress and sick days while increasing my energy at work but also benefits me personally.

Over time, your lists will grow and as you cross out items, get smaller. But make sure that when you remove an item from the second list (things you don’t like) and from the third list (what you want to add), you save the change on the first list (things you like in your job). Each new item on that first list is another rung on the happiness at work ladder, and it’s good to look down every now and then and see how far you’ve gotten.

2) take advantage of your working neighbors

There’s not much you can do to change the cast of the characters you work with. But you can improve each of these relationships.

Learn more about what other people want and help them achieve it, even if you’re not their boss. Make meetings more fun or engaging. Help reduce the length, mandatory attendance and frequency of these meetings. Try to insert humor throughout the day.

Just getting to know your coworkers better – which is no more difficult than asking them questions – deepens your bond with them. The more connected you are, the more you will look forward to working with them every day. And if you are eager to interact with your coworkers, you will enjoy your job much more as a result. You might not like what you’re doing, but at least Michael, Jamie, Collin, Fiona and Saeed will be there!

The added benefit of this second effort is that it also increases the happiness of your coworkers, perhaps helping them tip their scales to the “satisfying” side and beyond.

3) Create a new job title in your head

Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s research focused, in part, on a group of hospital cleaning staff. It is a job that most people, without having done it, might assume would be unsatisfactory. Cleaning pans and interacting with the sick and dying is few people’s dream jobs.

Good and bad, it's all the same: a Taoist parable to live

But what they found was that an important factor among those who said they liked their work was how they cognitively reframed it. The job was the same for everyone, but while some thought it was made up of uncreative tasks, those who enjoyed the job thought it played a vital role in healing patients. A hospital employee considered himself an “ambassador”.

And it’s not just about thinking differently, because that has a limited effect when nothing else changes. Thinking differently has also changed the way they do their jobs.

“It’s more than just a change of mind,” Wrzesniewski explained to me. “It’s a change in your behavior approach to your work. If you think, “I am an ambassador in the hospital,” that changes what you do. ”

For example, you might be cleaning bedpans, but if you see yourself as a caregiver, you might be looking at what’s in the bedpan for signs of health issues to alert. a nurse. “You don’t think, ‘I can’t do this,’” Wrzesniewski said. “This is where the action really comes in.”

By changing the paradigm around their work and adding meaning and purpose, the hospital staff made the most difficult parts of their work tolerable, even important, and changed their behavior to support this goal.

Can you do this with your job?

Think about the role you play in a larger setting that has a positive effect on others, culture, or the environment. You can enter data in a booth, but what is the data used for? And how is your commitment to accuracy and detail critical to the effectiveness of this data? You can rote chores in a factory, but are you helping to build something that people need or that brings joy to others?

How might your actions change when you start to see them this way?

Beyond everything the job itself does, there is also meaning and purpose to what you do with your paycheck. For example, providing for your family’s needs is fundamentally important for their ability to thrive. It is important, especially when you are stressed, upset, or unhappy, to remind yourself of the security and opportunities that your paycheck gives you. That alone can give you strength in tough times at work.

Integration

“Onboarding” is the term used by human resource managers when someone starts up a new business, to prepare it.

Now is the time for you to embark on your new beginning. You are ready. You are the human resource you have been waiting for.

Here’s the final takeaway: These factors – improving the way you spend time, connecting with those around you, making sense of your tasks – are just as vital to your non-working hours.

David G. Allan is the Editorial Director of CNN Travel, Style, Science and Wellness.

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