Being Happy On The Job

 April 12, 2010
Interview with Jessica Pryce-Jones author of Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success

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Mike Carruthers:
Just how happy and content you are at work is determined by several factors.

Jessica Pryce-Jones:
It looks to be about 50% of your happiness comes with who you are. 10-15% comes with the context that you find yourself in – but 35-40% comes from how you manage that context.
 

Jessica Pryce-Jones author of Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital for Success says being happy on the job starts with the right attitude.

And I always think that you can go about a job that is difficult and you can go about it with amazing grace. And those are the people who get recognized and will move up fastest.

Having a lousy boss can be a real obstacle to being happy at work.

Giving off the vibes to your boss that you think he’s a jerk isn’t going to make him like you. So, what could you do that would really get your boss’s respect and would make your boss look good? And set that as a challenge to yourself. We know from our research that undertaking a challenge and achieving it, is what makes you happy at work. So, make that one of your challenges.

Because being happy at work isn’t just about accomplishing tasks that you like. It’s about accomplishing tasks whether you like them or not.

We’ve seen from our research that people don’t like being given challenges. But what they love is having done the challenge – having achieved it. So you look at the mountain and go, “Oh, wow have I really got to climb that mountain?” But when you get to the top of the mountain and you look down, you feel pretty good.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.