The Single Way to Achieve Happiness at Work
Only by serving those job opportunities that align with our values, we can stay satisfied with our work long term.
When problems arise and repeat themselves, many people overlook the root cause and often tend to look for quick solutions.
Looking at how others solved a similar problem sometimes equals looking for the one size fits all solutions to our problems.
Nevertheless, quick fixes don’t work in personal development, especially if you did not start by fixing the root cause of the problem. And we may want to do this, especially if we want to be authentic to ourselves. And if the purpose is work happiness, being authentic to ourselves is a must.
We not everybody is ready to admit that they are not being honest to themselves, unfortunately.
Instead of behaving genuinely for seeing and solving problems, many times we prefer speed and convenience.
Looking for a solution tailored for ourselves involves deliberate courage to develop greater self-awareness. And this is not a quite easy and cozy thing to do, to put it nicely.
A friend of mine, who works as a Therapist, told me once that people are usually afraid of diving deep to get to know themselves, as almost always they will discover something that is not flattering.
He told me that you can be surprised if you are looking too close in the mirror. Sometimes, you could see things that you did not know they were there. So we prefer to look from the distance. This way, we avoid any unpleasant surprises.
And, how smart it is to say, for example, that our clothes are to blame because doesn’t fit us, when, in fact, our body has a different size.
When it comes to ourselves, we can build a self-image of how we are and what we want, a self-portrait. We get some fixed ideas stuck in there, about what would satisfy us at work. We get some opinions lodged in so deep that is not easy to take them out. And we make sure we hide away hurts or any weaknesses so nobody can see them, not even us.
Being ready to face who we are is sometimes tough! If it would be easy, everybody would be happy, right?
Recognizing the real values that drive us, the ones that we didn’t practice that much, will make it so much easier for us afterward.
What if we discover that we have personal beliefs that keep us from becoming satisfied with our work life, that limit us. At least, we would know what limiting beliefs we would need to break!
What if our perception of risk is different from the one needed for improving our credibility at work. We would know at least what it would take to get a little more further! And we can be so much better at decision making.
What if we dream of being a freelancer, but we discover that we are not ready to face uncertainties. We would know what it would take for us to make it become a good fit for us.
How often do we think does our financial security stem from our core values? Because we should, it has a great deal of influence.
The main idea is that we need to understand how our values align in the key areas of our lives, such as financial values, family values, vocational values.
And to understand all this, it requires courage. Having the courage to get to know our values and then deciding when to act upon requires taking ownership of our own life.
I have met and listened a few times for David Ulrich, professor of business at the University of Michigan, who wrote in one of his books
When desperate people seek easy solutions without doing the hard work of fundamental learning and change, resilience is undermined, and real growth and learning fade.
When we are not happy at work, speaking to your boss so he can provide a quick fix or changing the job may solve the problem. For the moment, at least.
But when dissatisfaction at work keeps on repeating and we find ourselves again disengaged — it’s clear! We need to find a solution that will work for us in diverse work environments, on multiple job scenarios and that can be used each time we need it during our work life.
Researchers have shown meaningfulness to be more important to employees than any other aspect of work, including pay and rewards.
In Career Counseling, I’ve learned that career interventions should be based only on the peoples’ value system.
Knowing our value system will allow us to define our relationship with work.
Finding your perfect job without defining how this job fits with our value system might well be illusory.
Conclusion
When we identify what gives us meaning to our work we are much more closer to addressing future work dissatisfaction.
From my point of view, the first step to happiness is understanding how to give meaning to your work.
Either we search for free online tools on how to identify our Value System, or we take Personal Value Tests we have a lot of options to identify and understand the values that drive us.
Understanding what values drive us may be the best way to go when feeling that our occupations are meaningless.
Only by serving those job opportunities that do align with our values can keep us satisfied with our work long term. And when our values are changing along the way, we need to make sure we adapt the way we work.
I couldn’t agree more with Michele Obama’s remarkable view on this topic:
I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values, and follow my own moral compass, then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.
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