Is your job dragging you down? Or, are you content with your job, but wish that it was more rewarding? What can you do to make your job and your work life better? What does it mean to flourish in the workplace?
Here are 5 elements that will make your work and career better, and will lead to flourishing at work:
1. Find the Meaning in Your Job
Does your work have purpose? Does your labor lead to benefits for others? Certain jobs, like those in the helping professions — health, teaching, counseling — obviously have meaning, but even more mundane jobs can have a sense of meaning and purpose. Reframe your current job in customer service (“I’m providing what others need and making it a pleasant experience”) or manufacturing (“Our products are reliable and provide years of service to buyers”) to find the meaning.
2. Increase Job Engagement
In order to flourish at work, one needs to be engaged, either with the work itself or in the team or organization in which you work. To do this, you need to connect with your job and/or your workplace. A job that makes good use of your talents and skills is an engaging job. If you don’t feel like your job is a good fit, it may be time to either change jobs or change how you do your job. You can also increase engagement with your team — find ways to innovate or help others — making yourself more valuable.
3. Celebrate Accomplishments
Do you achieve goals (personal, company-wide, or industry-wide) in your work career? This includes being recognized for your contributions and your mastery of your job. My sister is an outstanding and recognized librarian, and that helps her get through the more mundane aspects of her job and her lengthy commute to and from work each day.
4. Build Meaningful Relationships
You need to develop and nurture high-quality relationships with others at work. As in all aspects of life, having good relationships with our supervisors, colleagues, and supervisees is critical. Research clearly shows that the greatest amount of stress and dissatisfaction at work is caused by bad interpersonal relationships.
5. Maintain Positive Emotions and Be Optimistic
Positive emotions and an optimistic outlook on life are key drivers of workplace happiness (and happiness in life, generally). Focusing on the positives is always better than dwelling on the negatives. Of course, you can’t fake it. If your job truly drags you down, you might have to look at alternative positions.
If you are looking for a job that will provide more opportunities to flourish, follow these steps:
- Look for the meaning in any job. It’s typically there, you just might not see it.
- Search for jobs and tasks that use your talents and those that you find engage you.
- Look for a job that will allow you to fulfill meaningful goals. Celebrate (and reward yourself) for achieving those goals and for your accomplishments throughout your career.
- Seek out jobs in places that pride themselves on a good work culture. Work hard to develop good interpersonal relationships and become part of that positive culture.
- Whichever job you choose, try to focus on the positives. Be optimistic. Wear a smile (you will be surprised at how this will both make you happy and improve the moods of those around you).
