There are degrees to every ones level of happiness when it comes to appreciating their job. In the HBO series, “Happyish” they refer to it as a “joy ceiling” – the highest level of happy you can possibly expect to achieve. Some people have high and low “joy ceilings” based on how they choose to deal with the ups and downs life throws at them. So, what’s your joy ceiling? When you describe your relationship with your job would you use words such as joyous, jubilant or jovial? Or are you just “happish”?
They say it doesn’t matter what you do in life so long as you are happy. Some say it’s the passion in your work that should drive you and make you content no matter how much you get paid, where you work or whom you work with. Maybe that works for some people but does it work for you? When you think about all the options and career choices you could have made, did you choose wisely or just fall into your career? It doesn’t really matter how you got there. What matters is what you do when you show up.
You can make the best and worst of any situation based on your “joy ceiling.” You can embrace change at work as a new opportunity, a challenge or a just another piece of BS you have to deal with to get your lousy paycheck at the end of the week. So many people work because they have to not because they want to. Name the last person you spoke to who said they worked because “they loved what they did” not because they needed to make a living and you probably have met the only person in the Universe with a high enough joy ceiling to not give a crap about what others think.
It’s hard to imagine what your life could be like if you were truly happy in your job? Do you ever fantasize what that might feel like just for fun? The next time you are having a day from hell, allow yourself to meander awhile in the fields of fantasy and just think about anything other than what you are doing. Here are a few steps to help you along the way:
- Close Your Eyes & Breathe: When you are having a particularly bad day take yourself someplace quiet, close your eyes and take a few deep belly breathes to center yourself. When you’ve had enough air not to feel faint, start to imagine that you are in your “happy” place wherever that is and see what comes up for you. It might be you are on a beach, on top of a mountain, or at home. Wherever you land just imagine if everyday at work looked something like this how much better would your work-life experience be?
- What Are You Doing? If you had nothing but time what would you love to do? Would you binge on Netflix or would you write, create art, put a business plan together or build a car? If you had the luxury of doing what made you happy-what would you be doing?
- Come back: Now that you’ve spent a few minutes imagining your perfect, happy existence-does it give you any insight into what you might try your hand at if you had nothing but your giddy, happy self to deal with?
Knowing that you can make any situation bearable is one thing, but realizing that it is possible to be truly, deliciously, deliriously happy is quite another. Next time your job makes you want to plunge yourself deep into a depressed state, take a minute, breathe it in and go to your happy place for inspiration.
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