Wednesday 20th March will mark the UN’s International Day of Happiness. So, for all those that feel stuck in rut and demotivated, Royston Guest – an author and leading authority on growing businesses and unlocking people-potential – outlines his five top tips for achieving happiness at work.

 

Happiness is such an emotive word. It has many different definitions to each and every one of us. We are all unique made up of our own DNA.

 

Is happiness…. your high-flying career? Or being the leader of a great team? Or the work-life balance you achieve? Or is it the pay-check at the end of every month? Whatever the reason, here are five tips for achieving happiness at work.

 

#1 Ask the question ‘What does success mean to you both personally and professionally?

 

One of the keys to unlocking a motivational environment is to clearly understand your personal goals and how being successful at work can be one of the vehicles and enablers in helping you realise your goals. The moment we create the bridge in our mind – the link between our personal goals, business goals and what we do daily during work – self-motivation kicks in. 

 

This is the defining moment we change from someone with a job to someone with a purpose. We have aligned personally and professionally our meaning of success and more importantly ‘WHY we do what we do’.

 

#2 Be clear about your tensions and trade-offs

 

When you are really clear about what success means to you – both personally and professionally – you can design your life, fully aware of the tensions and trade-offs you’re making. For example, if you’re seeking a promotion you may accept the extra hours you have to work to prove you’ve got skin in the game, or you may not. You remove the pressure to be someone that you’re not or don’t want to be. You remove the potential conflicts weighing you down and the unhappiness that goes with it.

 

#3 Treat your emotional wellbeing the same as you would your physical wellbeing

 

Your emotional wellbeing is not a luxury and it should be viewed on an equal footing to your physical wellbeing. By understanding that it’s the energy source powering your performance - when it’s low, your performance is low – you recognise the short- and long-term impact it has on you, your role and the business you work for. 

 

#4 In order to give your best, you have to be at your best

 

It’s good to be focused and driven and to push yourself to excel – but it’s also good to just do nothing. Being busy all the time is not sustainable. In fact, it’s a perfect recipe for burnout, and burnout isn’t just a metaphorical thing. If you’ve ever experienced it or witnessed anyone else hit the proverbial brick wall, it’s very real and it’s very difficult to recover from. 

 

There are two ways to unwind and recover from hard work: there is rest and there is relaxation, and the two aren’t entirely the same. 

 

Rest is where you cease work or movement in order to sleep or recover your strength. You rest when you are tired and when you go to sleep at night. Sleep and rest refresh your mind and repair your body. Relaxation, on the other hand, is the act of relaxing, and can be defined as the release of tension and the refreshment of the mind or body. Rest and relaxation work hand in hand and it’s important to invest time in both, in order to optimise your mental and physical health. 

 

#5 Set yourself up for success

 

Do you know what great performance looks, feels and acts like, in your role from both a behavioral and numerical/KPI perspective?

 

If you haven’t got absolute clarity about what the expectations are for your role or what great looks like, it’s almost predictable that you and your manager will be working to different models and interpretations of what it does look like. This is not good for productivity and it certainly isn’t good for your wellbeing and happiness.

 

Get clarification of purpose for your role. Get enabled with the mindset (attitude, determination, will), the skillset (technical or soft skills) and the toolset (tools to do the job) to truly unlock your potential and deliver excellence. In so doing, you will fuel your inner self worth, ignite your self-motivation, build your confidence and your happiness at work will be inevitable.

 

About the author

Royston Guest is a leading authority on growing businesses and unlocking people potential. Entrepreneur, author of #1 best-seller Built to Grow and new book RISE: Start living the life you were meant to lead