During Thanksgiving, people often take time to think about the things for which they are thankful. They often list things such as their family, friends, and health as some of the main ideas that come to the forefront. Occasionally, work may fall into this top list, but often this is only because individuals are thankful just having a job and being able to support their family with the income that it brings in, not because they consider it the "job of their dreams." Many wake up every day and dread going to their office because of a number of different reasons that they hate their job. However, if individuals will just follow a few new practices every day, they can find a whole new joy in their job.
Get to know your co-workers who are NOT like you
Many people approach interacting with their co-workers as a necessary evil. They naturally gravitate to those who are like them and put them in their bucket of new friends, while staying away or completely ignoring those individuals who they don't seem to have a natural chemistry with. While this may not lead to any noticeable deficiencies in your work productivity, by making an effort to spend time and get to know those individuals who you are not like, you can greatly increase your chance of enjoying your job. How great is it to hear abut someone who has just achieved something spectacular in their life or hear a funny or interesting story at work. By taking time to reach out and get to know those who are not like you, you are greatly increasing your chances of participating in something of this nature at work. Often, once you take the time to really get to know someone personally, you will learn that while you two may still be "different," you are able to have a great friendship based on mutual respect and appreciation.
Laugh as much as possible
Some people treat work like it has to be the most mundane and boring time of their day. It is estimated that an individual will spend approximately 11 years of their life (from sun up to sun down, working an 8 hour day - 5 days a week) working. Often, people leave their homes in a bad mood and act as if the only time they can take a minute to crack a smile or share a joke with someone is when they are on a break or at lunch. This is insane. Laughter makes everyone feel good. Whether it's laughing at yourself for a bone head comment made in a meeting or laughing at at someone else for their bone head comment made in a meeting, you should actually SEEK OUT as many things as possible that happen at your job that are funny. While this doesn't mean you should become the office clown, it does mean that you should open yourself up to not being so serious in every situation that presents itself as the day progresses.
Don't take work that serious
Many times when I tell my co-workers this, they are surprised that I give this advice. From the outside looking in, I take work extremely serious, as I hold myself to a high level of excellence to be successful. However, I don't substitute my happiness and sanity for stressing about the details of my job all the time. Unless you are in a department of law enforcement or medicine, your job probably does not involve life and death. Many people have a tendency to stress to insane amounts about an order being late or a client not signing a deal. While this is still important in the grand scheme of your success and achievement at your job, it is nothing that will lead directly the execution of yourself or a family member, so don't treat it as such. Take the time to assess what happened and what you could have done to prevent it and move on. If you find yourself under extreme stress about something at work, ask yourself two questions. 1.Is stressing about it going to improve the situation in any way? 2.If the situation turns out to be worse case scenario, will anyone die? If the answer to either of these is no, take a deep breath, smile, and go find someone to share a joke with.
Ken Middleton is an Account Executive at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and sales. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.
You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN.
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