Choosing Happiness
People tend to approach their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career or a calling. We might think that these orientations depend on the job itself, but studies done at NYU show that all three approaches exist in almost EVERY occupation out there.
I don’t mention this finding to say that the job we choose doesn’t matter, but to shed light on how much our attitude towards work shapes our experience of it. At the end of the day, seeing work as a job, career or calling is a CHOICE.
In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt suggests that a big part of the happiness equation is “having and pursuing the right goals in order to create states of flow and engagement”. And while we can find sources of flow in different contexts, most people actually experience most of their flow at work.
Maybe it’s important to define flow to see how it fits into the happiness equation. Flow happens when our skills meet the challenge in front of us. You know those moments where you feel so completely immersed in what you’re doing? Maybe it’s leading a team meeting or working on an exciting project. Notice that it’s the combination of using our greatest strengths AND being challenged that pushes us towards higher levels of engagement.
Now when I compare how I feel during and after a moment of high engagement versus how I feel during and after eating a bowl of ice cream, the experiences are quite different. In the former, there is this feeling of elevation that persists even after the moment is over. That feeling might last the entire rest of the day! On the other hand, when I eat ice cream it’s more like a feeling of excitement that quickly goes back to baseline once it’s over.
My point is not to say ice cream isn’t amazing and shouldn’t be enjoyed (because that’s objectively untrue), but to say that maybe we should be putting more of an emphasis on finding happiness through the settings that cultivate flow state. Yes, it’s easier to find “ice cream” levels of happiness, but it’s more rewarding to find happiness through moments of high engagement. We can’t CHOOSE to be in flow as easily as we can CHOOSE to eat ice cream, but we can CHOOSE to view our work as an opportunity to use and cultivate our strengths. We can CHOOSE to view the challenges that work presents to us as opportunities (dare I say, prerequisites) for growth. And through this CHOOSING and the actions that follow it, we significantly increase the likelihood of experiencing moments of flow.
Have I said CHOOSE enough yet? The point is, how we CHOOSE to view our work and approach it each day has an undeniable impact on the amount of flow, and thus happiness, that we experience overall. And during a time in the world where so much is out of our control, I desperately want us to remember where we still have agency. The one thing that can never be taken away from us is our attitude.
Are you ready to CHOOSE happiness through your work? Find out for real by taking this quick 10-question assessment.