Having a good day at work may be as simple as changing the way you think and tweaking your approach. Here are six tips to help you find joy.
• SING YOUR FAVOURITE SONG A big meeting or presentation can make for an awful day in the office. But there is a way to bypass that stress – sing a song to yourself before you begin your workday. “Our brains are very associative and we only have to experience one good thing to trigger thoughts related to that,” says Caroline. “So if we hear a song we like, it will trigger a cascade of memories that could put us in a good mood as we’re reminded of a night out with friends or a lovely holiday.”
Having a good day at work may be as simple as changing the way you think and tweaking your approach. Here are six tips to help you find joy.
We’ve all had bad days at work: enduring the traffic snarls to get into the office, run-ins with annoying colleagues and being set yet another unrealistic deadline by your boss. But before you break down in tears, there might be a way to make those bad days a thing of the past. Caroline Webb, a former partner at a management consultancy, suggests using a combination of psychology and neuroscience in her book, How to Have a Good Day: Think Bigger, Feel Better and Transform Your Working Life, to help you have a good day at work – every single day.
“So many people are having days of dissatisfaction,” says Caroline. “It’s sort of accepted. We talk about having a bad day at work as if it is something we have to put up with. But I found that making small tweaks can make a big difference to how people feel.” In a survey of 3,300 people conducted by job website CV-Library for British newspaper The Telegraph, 51 per cent admitted to having one bad day at work a week, while nearly one in four had two bad days a week.
The main reasons for the unhappiness were feeling unappreciated (47 per cent) and having an unrealistic workload (40 per cent). “Research is very clear that when we are stressed, we aren’t able to think at our best,” says Caroline. “Our brain diverts mental energy to mounting a stress response, which means activity in our brain’s prefrontal cortex, where most of our sophisticated thinking happens, actually drops when we’re stressed.
The knock-on effects are enormous, both professionally and in your family life. You’re simply not at your best.” Gail Kinman, professor of Occupational Health Psychology at the University of Bedfordshire, agrees: “Having bad days at work can affect every part of your life. “Daily hassles like awful commutes and difficult work e-mails are worse for your health than major life events like divorce and bereavement. Those major events are one-offs and very intense, but you tend to have a lot of support for them.
That doesn’t happen for daily hassles. Instead they build up and lead to a negative mindset and stress.” So what makes a good day? For 63 per cent of respondents, it’s the feeling they have done their work well while others (46 per cent) say it’s all about meeting targets. But it could also be something as simple as getting a seat on the train and being served your morning coffee in record time, all of which, Caroline says, sets your brain up for wanting to see the good things in your day. Here are her top tips for having a blast at work every day.
• DON’T E-MAIL GRAZE “There are times when it’s tempting to graze e-mails,” says Caroline. “I recommend that people blitz e-mails twice a day rather than look at them throughout the day. I’m not saying go offline all day. Hone in on the most important piece of work and go offline while you’re doing that.”
• SURVIVE YOUR COMMUTE While you can’t do anything about a train delay, you can make the journey more positive. “If someone in front of you is walking slowly or they elbow you on the train, it’s helpful to think of them as good people having a bad day. Having this mentality can make for a less stressful commute and de-escalate situations; apply it in the workplace, especially when your colleague is being annoying – think about what might be going wrong in their day,” advises Caroline. And come up with a few possible reasons for their bad behaviour. You don’t have to believe them but the idea that there could be a reason behind their snappiness – perhaps they missed the train or were told off by their boss – can help you look at the situation differently and even make you feel empathy for them.
• TAKE SMART BREAKS Taking regular breaks can help you make sense of a task rather than be overwhelmed by it. “We’ve got a tendency to think breaks are a nice thing to have, but they are essential to the workday,” says Caroline. “It’s not just because your brain’s deliberate system (the part of the brain that focuses on analysis, selfcontrol and forward planning) needs a break, but it’s actually doing work while you are offline, processing and consolidating what you’re doing.”
• PUMP UP YOUR TO-DO LIST Your to-do list is a vital part of boosting your mood at work. “It’s all about making your brain happy,” says Caroline. So motivate yourself by making it satisfying to tick things off, only looking at what you have to do that day and adding in things like going for a walk. “If your list is online, give yourself a box to tick. The more rewarding it feels, the more your brain will tend to spur you towards getting things done.”
• STRIKE A POSE Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the key to success at work is not talent but confidence. So what happens if you’re lacking in either traits? Caroline advises faking it till you make it. “We smile when we’re happy, and breathe deeply and slowly when we’re calm. So when we mimic the physical actions of an alpha male or female – squaring our shoulders and standing taller – we give ourselves a boost of confidence. “This is one of the quickest hacks available. It works best if you strike the pose just before a meeting and then carry on doing it subtly throughout.”
