For those that had their holiday during the summer it will soon be time to go back to work. I hope that the vacation has been enjoyable and that you now feel that it is good to be going back to work.<\/p>\n
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The fact is that if you feel happy about yourself and your work, then you are going\u00a0to do a better job. Many studies show that happy people are more creative, feel more engaged, have better health,\u00a0and produce better results. As I myself have experienced many times, happiness is contagious. If you enter a room with happy people you feel better about yourself. If you smile at someone they feel better and become happier.<\/p>\n
To talk about happiness, you might first need to know what being ‘happy’ is. I read an article in the Harvard Business\u00a0Review where the author described the psychological view of happiness. There are three distinct pathways.<\/p>\n
The first is\u00a0The<\/strong>\u00a0pleasant life<\/strong>, which involves positive experiences including contentment, hope, and sensory enjoyment. This kind of well-being is often referred to as\u00a0hedonia<\/em>, based on the Greek term for pleasure.<\/p>\n The second is\u00a0The<\/strong>\u00a0engaged life<\/strong>,\u00a0or eudaimonia<\/em>. The ancient Greeks believed in a “daemon”, or guardian spirit, that would guide you towards your destiny; the word also means genius. The engaged life thus refers to a person’s ability to deploy his own personal genius \u2013 to use his unique strengths and talents in a way that engages and absorbs him.<\/p>\n The third pathway is\u00a0The meaningful life<\/strong>, which relates to the desire to be part of something bigger than oneself \u2013 to belong and contribute to an institution that has a purpose. You feel enthusiasm and want to be a part of the purpose \u2013\u00a0entheos<\/em>\u00a0means to be filled with God.<\/p>\n It further states that all three of these pathways \u2013 pleasure, engagement, and meaning \u2013 are equally important.<\/p>\n What can we learn from this? With this knowledge to hand we may start to evaluate our own organizations and to find out if we as co-workers or as business leaders do enough to create a happy organization where we perform better because we are happier. Questions that may arise are:<\/p>\n Take a moment to take stock of your \u201chappy supply\u201d within your work place. If you discover that you and your colleagues are truly happy at work, then you will also will find that you perform very well too, as it is a two fold; you feel happy and that is good, and the organization will give a good value to your customers. It is therefore a total win-win situation. It will raise you even higher as one gives to the other and that in turn feeds back into the first. It is a positive spiral.<\/p>\n Good luck!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n