101 Career Ideas to be Happy at Work
Do you want to be happier at work?
As we all know, we spend a lot of time at work. The average amount of hours is calculated to be between 80,000 and 100,000 per person in their lifetime. Yes, that is a lot of time!
For years, psychologists struggled to find the correlation between productivity and happiness at work. They were assuming that productive people were happier. After years of head-scratching, some clever researcher turned the equation around and found that actually, happier are more productive.
Psychologist such as Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi were the founders of the Positive Psychology movement. Over the years, these researchers and others have found being happier at work is correlated to many positive and desirable outcomes. Examples are, happier people tend to be healthier, more creative and better at problem-solving. They tend to be more driven and committed to working, as well as being able to deal with stress better and reconciling conflict. Benefits can also be that happy people find more flow and meaning at work, tend to be rated as being more likeable and trustworthy and more effective leaders. Workplaces that report higher levels of happiness also repost lower turnovers, fewer accidents and lower health costs.
Happiness at work is a serious matter. Read how the Why, Where, How, Who, What of Happiness at Work and how it can help you to find a way to be happier at work.
The Why, Where, How, Who and What of Career Happiness
There are, of course, many factors that can affect career happiness. From research and practice, I have put together a 5 Factor Model of the Why, Where, How, Who, What of Career Happiness. The factors are as follows:
1. Why: Meaning and Purpose
Understanding our Why and having some meaning and purpose to what we do can provide motivation to work. Work needs to satisfy your work values. Your values are what is important to you, such as a need to contribute to society, gaining prestige, a feeling you are helping others through your work or perhaps having a sense of accomplishment for work.
2. Where: Environment
Being in the right environment can have a positive affect on how we feel about work. If our basic needs of having sufficient heating, lighting and space are not met, it can make us miserable. Some people prefer to work outside, whilst others prefer inside. Some people prefer to work from home and the other prefer an office environment. Some people prefer a busy, noisy environment with lots of people, whereas the opposite is true for others.
3. How: Mind and Body
Our Mindset and our physical health can also affect our happiness and how we go about work. Choosing to think positively and having the resilience to deal with adversity at work can have a positive impact. And, of course we feel happier if we are healthier.
4. Who: Relationships
Relationships with our peers, bosses and everyone we work with can have a big impact on how we feel about work. Positive work relationships and open communication can have a big effect on positivity at work. Being treated fairly by others and appreciated are also factors.
5. What: Engagement
What we do is also impactful on our happiness at work. Ideally work should be interesting to us. It should be manageable in the given timescales, suits our strengths and people tend to be happier if there is some autonomy to how and when we do our work.
What is important to You?
From research, these are the top factors that affect career happiness. However, different things are more or less important to different people as we are all unique.
Let’s have a look at what is important to you. Have a look at the five areas and score, the five elements as to where would you be right now. Then where you would you want to be this time next year? The scale is 1 to 10, 1 being low and 10 high. We will now look at some career ideas to help you on your way.
Career Ideas to Improve Happiness at Work
Once you have your scores, look for the biggest discrepancies between where you are now and where you want to be this time next year. What do you want to change? In a journal or notebook, make some notes of the career ideas as to how to improve on career happiness. Select a few to work on so you can see positive improvements this time next year.
Meaning and Purpose
1. Work out your meaning and purpose: People who have meaning and purpose to their lives tend to be happier. What gives you meaning and purpose to work? What is the objective of your job and who does it help? If you frame your work around who you help and what matters to you it can make work much more meaningful.
2. Understand your values: What do you value at work? How do your values fit with the values of the organisation? What could you do more around your values?
3. Volunteer: If you struggle to find meaning and purpose at work, try volunteering for a charity that means something to you. You can also often learn new skills, meet new people or give back to the community by giving time to a charity organisation.
4. Develop a sense of achievement: Rather than thinking about all the things that have gone wrong, make a list of everything you have achieved. You can do this at the end of the day, the end of the week and end of the month to give yourself some sense of achievement at work.
Environment
5. Get more fresh air: Try a meeting outside – walk and talk instead of being in front of Zoom.
6. Mix it up: If you are working from home, try a different location or room.
7. Tidy up your deskspace: Researchers have found working at a tidy desk or in a pleasant environment helps work happiness.
Mind and Body
8. Decide to be happy: Psychologists have found that we can develop a positive mindset by getting out of the habits of unhelpful negative thinking to a more positive approach. How we feel, think and what we do are all connected. The first step is to make a conscious decision to be happier and not to be stuck in a negative mindset. Emotions are contagious: Choose to be happy around your team and co-workers. Vow to choose positive words and quit moaning and don’t encourage it in others. It can be destructive and energy-zapping.
9. Examine your internal dialogue (how you speak to yourself): Do you give yourself a hard time? Decide to be kind to yourself and speak to yourself as you would others. Give yourself positive encouragement even if you don’t get it from elsewhere.
10. Control overthinking: Worrying and overthinking is not always helpful. When things go around in your head, ask yourself if this is helping you. If not replace with other happy, more constructive thoughts.
11. Be grateful: Martin Seligman (a famous positive psychologist) created the 3 blessings exercise, which is useful in creating a positive mindset. At the end of the day write down 3 good things that have happened that day – it could be finishing a piece of work, having a great meeting at work or even having a tasty lunch! This is a way to train the brain to look for the positives rather than focus on the negatives.
12. Smile and laugh more: Neuroscientists have found smiling releases endorphins, which make us feel happier. Even if we don’t feel happy, by smiling and laughing we can change our mood. Try a daily joke website to start your day.
13. Sleep: Remember to make sure you get enough sleep. Many people are sleep deprived and lack of sleep can affect mood and performance.
14. Try to leave work at work: Not always possible I know – but at least have some time before bed where you do something relaxing so you don’t think about work issues.
15. Practice mindfulness or meditation: There has been much written recently about the benefits of mindfulness or meditation. Even 5 minutes of relaxation can help. Try a DVD, app or class on meditation or yoga.
16. Eat happy: Some foods have been found to increase happiness, reduce depression and increase brain functioning. See a nutritionist and find out what would work for you or research happy foods and eat more of them.
17. Don’t eat at your desk: Eating whilst working is not a good thing. Researchers have found people to be more productive when they take proper breaks from work. Make a proper lunch break with a colleague so you can be refreshed for the afternoon.
18. Exercise: Exercise can have a huge effect on wellbeing. Don’t have time? Think about how you can fit it into your day, such as cycling or walking to work, taking the stairs instead of a lift or getting up earlier to go to a class at the gym or a late-night yoga class to calm you down at the end of the day.
Relationships
19. Build Relationships: Researchers have found relationships at work have a profound effect on happiness and wellbeing. Teams who encourage, support and appreciate each other make problem solving, innovation and success possible. What can you do to improve and build relationships at work?
20. Embrace diversity: Everyone is different and can add something to the team. Find out more about other people’s cultures.
21. Participate in a team event or challenge: Sign up to an organised event where you can meet other people from different parts of your business and work together to achieve an event or challenge. You can do this remotely.
22. Create a team event: Suggest a team event that you can create and organise such as a charity event or sporting challenge.
23. Compliment someone on their work: Everyone likes a compliment and sometimes we don’t get enough reward and recognition. If you compliment others, you might get more yourself!
24. Become a great networker: Grab an opportunity to make informal contact with people both within the organisation and those externally to enable learning and reviewing activities. Networking is more tricky in the pandemic but it still can be done.
25. Team Meetings, Mix it up! : Take turns in leading the team meeting. Or doing it differently. Find out what people need to get from the meeting. Team meetings are important for team building but can become more of a chore than the motivational time they should be.
26. Themed Team Meeting: Have a theme for the meetings – have a breakfast meeting, or discuss important team issues such as how to communicate better, how we can save time, how to send fewer emails to each other, how we can improve performance………
27. Team Building exercises: These are great for team bonding and getting to know others. Volunteer to run one or suggest and external provider to facilitate Myers Briggs team building or similar. These can be done online.
28. Team Problem Solving: Work on a specific problem together as a team to get a fresh perspective.
29. Go to an online conference: Attend a conference in your team – swap notes on learning afterwards. It’s more fun to learn together.
30. Train someone else: The best way to learn is to teach but this is also a bonding and rewarding experience.
31. Start a Club: It could be a team club at lunchtime or outside work on an area of interest such as a book or cinema club. Or it could be a club to raise money for a charity that interests you.
32. Communities of practice: Join a group of individuals with a common interest to discuss developments and best practice.
33. Ask for feedback: Ask people for feedback on a regular basis. Ask for feedback and give feedback using BOOST. Feed back that is balanced, observed, objective, specific and timely.
34. Stop, start, continue: Another structure for feedback is to ask individuals and teams what they would like you to stop doing, what is going well and new ideas.
35. 360 feedback: You may have the opportunity to do 360-degree feedback at work – asking co-workers and managers how you fair across different areas of competency. This can also be an informal questionnaire to see how you are doing and progressing.
36. Continuous improvement workshops: Go to or create a group that meets with the aim of identifying areas for improving aspects of the product or service being offered.
37. Taskforces: Join a group from different departments brought together on a full or part-time basis to carry out a defined project.
38. Action learning sets, problem-solving groups and discussion groups: Work with others in groups to tackling real-life problems.
39. Supplier forums: Participate in or organise meetings with suppliers to hear from other points of view and how changes might improve the quality of the life cycle and reduce costs.
40. Quality circles: Participate in or organise a multi-level group of volunteers meeting to discuss how to improve products and services.
41. Support groups: Form or participate in a support group of people with similar jobs, to share information and experiences.
42. Share learning logs: Share amongst team members something they have learned in the last month or something they have done differently and its effect.
43. Co-coach: Form a co-coaching group where you learn from each other on different aspects of work.
44. Make a virtual coffee date with a co-worker: Get to know people in the team you don’t know so well.
45. The idea of the week: Encourage team members to put their ideas forward and select one each week and display it openly.
46. Story Sharing: Stories can be a powerful way of illustrating learning points and including others in communication. Get individuals in the team to tell a story of their experiences.
47. Big pictures: Draw pictures to bring things together, either physically or metaphorically. This can be a team-building exercise such as drawing “how you want the team to be”- hen compares pictures to see where the similarities and differences are.
48. LinkedIn: Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date. This is a huge networking site and useful to keep in touch with people you come across.
49. Celebrate Success!: Celebrate individual and team success! Always!
Engagement
50.Be at your best: Think of three times when you felt at your best. This can be at work or outside work. What made you feel at your best? What skills and strengths were you using? How can you do more of these things?
51. Know your innate abilities: Abilities can be measured using psychometric assessments, such as The Highlands Ability Battery. We generally are happier and are less stressed when using our natural abilities. Take the Highlands Ability Battery to find out your strengths.
52. Know your personality preferences: Understand your preferences by taking a personality questionnaire such as the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator. Understanding preferences can help with career management.
53. Understand your interests: What interests you at work? What could you be involved in more around your interests?
54. Shake it up! : The brain can get bored and stale when you do the same thing all the time. What can you do differently? Walk home rather than taking the bus? Meet someone at lunchtime rather than having a sandwich at work? Start a happiness at work journal? Make a list of things you are going to do to make you happier at work from this list?
55. Watch a Ted Talk: Watch some leaders in your field or learn about improving soft skills. There are hundreds of different topics available. Try the classic The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Informative but also very funny.
56. Read a Blog: Again, there are many blogs on topics of interest.
57. Learn a new skill on YouTube: Learn how to do something you’ve always wanted to do on Youtube – upholster a chair, change an inner tyre on your bike – anything!
58. Read a book: An autobiography of an industry leader, a self-development book, a poetry book – something different.
59. Read a newspaper: Buy one you don’t normally read, or read the parts you don’t get around to usually.
60. Give a paper at a conference: Prepare a paper to be given at a conference on a topic that you have researched.
61. Write a magazine article or a blog: Research and write up a topic of an area of interest.
62. Enter a competition for an industry award: Complete the entry form to demonstrate applied learning.
63. Join a professional body: Develop professionalism in your work area.
64. Go to their meetings: Talk to like-minded individuals in different organisations and exchange views.
65. Read professional or business magazines: Try those in a different field to your own – Forbes, Harvard Business Review
66. Sign up for e-newsletters: There are many organisations that issue regular newsletters - ones which touch on management and leadership issues.
67. Take a Class: There are all sorts of Adult Education Classes available in a wide range of topics. Pick one that you have an interest in or on something you have always wanted to learn about.
68. Take a Course: Take a course in an area that will improve your knowledge at work, employability or something you are interested in. Research Open University, distance learning and part-time courses. There are plenty of short courses from organisations like Coursera.
69. Understand strength and development needs: Identify your strengths and development needs using 1-2-1 sessions with your manager and other trusted colleagues.
70. Build Self Awareness: By understanding ourselves, we can realise what makes us happier at work and what is it specifically that makes us overstressed or unhappy.
71. Do more of what you love: By doing more of what you love – at work or outside work, more endorphins are released. This could be spending time with family and friends, craft, gardening, doing hobbies or sport. Or it could be being involved in projects at work where you work with people you enjoy working with or are interested in.
72. Career Journal: Keep a career journal of your learnings and what really matters to you at work and monitor your career happiness progress.
73. Learn something new: Contrary to popular belief, people are happier when they have work that challenges and stimulates. If you are feeling stale or bored at work perhaps it is time to learn something new! Decide what you want to learn about. Do you want to improve your existing skills or learn new ones – what are you interested in and what would motivate you?
74. Mentoring: Be a mentor to someone else or find a mentor. A mentor gives guidance and acts as a ‘trusted friend or advisor’.
75. Career Conversations or Appraisals: Career Conversations or Appraisal can be a source of learning as well as discussing individual learning and future career plans.
76. Reviews: Take the time to review the outcomes of a project with other members of the project to identify ways to improve future performance. Keep a log of progress.
77. Trial and error (and retrial): Practice a new skill or activity in a controlled situation. Learning from mistakes is very important.
78. Shadowing: Work alongside another colleague, perhaps from a different department, to learn a specific aspect of their role.
79. Research: Spend some time researching a topic you want to be an expert in.
80. Sit with a different team: Spend a day with another team and feedback differences in operation to both them and your team.
81. Job enrichment: Undertake an extra activity in addition to current duties.
82. Role model: Identify someone who does something well that you want to be good at and shadow them.
83. Delegation: Take on a task that is normally undertaken by someone else. Preferably above your level to demonstrate your capability.
84. Temporary promotion: Find out if there are opportunities to ‘act up’ for a set period.
85. Temporary job move/cover: Cover for an absent colleague to provide an opportunity to develop new skills and acquire knowledge.
86. Job swap or rotation: Swap jobs with someone else for a period. This can increase skills and add interest to a job.
87. Job splitting: Duties of one individual are divided with those of a colleague for a set period, each taking on part of the other’s job. Again, this is upskilling.
88. Internal secondment: Take on a task or role within the same organisation for a fixed period, usually in a different department.
89. External secondment: Work for a fixed period with another organisatio
90. Sideways move: Move to a vacant position at the same level to enable an opportunity to gain new skills and knowledge.
91. Visits: Get the opportunity to visit other departments, offices and organisations to learn different approaches to similar issues or attend different site meetings
92. Allow others the opportunity to attend your meetings: To see how things are done in your areas and ensure that you can discuss the differences so that you can both learn.
93. Training course or Workshop: Go on a training course to develop skills or find out more about a new system, product or technique.
94. Professional Qualification Training: Take a professional qualification to become an expert in your field
95. Online Learning: Sign up to some online learning that would be useful to learn new skills in.
96. CPD: Continuous Professional Development is required by some professions to ensure staff are up to date with all new developments. Keep a log whether its required or not as it will give you a sense of achievement.
97: Seminars: Attend a topic that interests you to build your knowledge.
98: Share Reading Lists: Share books that you have read that are relevant to your work with the team. This could also include interesting blogs, DVDs, Ted Talks or clips on YouTube.
99: Change Career: If you really feel you can not get happy in what you d, perhaps it’s time to move to something different.
100. Take on a Career Coach: If you find it difficult to understand yourself and how you can be happier at work, you might benefit from a career coach.
101. Brainstorm what would make you Happy at Work: You know you best. Take time out to think what makes you happy and how you can include that in your work
What other actionable career ideas can you think of?
Once you have some career ideas you can start to flesh out your plan for making them happen. Remember to make them SMART: Be specific. Measure your goals. Make your goals attainable. Make them relevant.
Have a Happy 2021!
I am Diana Dawson, Founder of Working Career. As a Professional Career Coach, Career Psychologist, Career Counsellor, Career Consultant, Executive Coach and Wellbeing at Work Coach, I work with organisations and individuals to help manage their careers.
I am an Accredited Master Coach with the Association for Coaching, a Coaching Psychologist and Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist with nearly 20 years of experience in the field.
I work with professional people from different sectors and backgrounds to cope and flourish at work. I also run Career Workshops and Wellbeing Workshops for organisations.
I can provide one-to-one career coaching in Edinburgh or zoom sessions worldwide. I can provide Career Workshops at your organisation or remotely. Find out more about me here