Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Work Life

1. Choose To Be Happy

Yes, happiness is a choice! Accept that you work for the boss from hell … but choose to go into work with a smile on your face. Look for ways to interact with your co-workers in a positive manner. Looks for ways to compliment your boss … make the compliment an honest one, and mean it. When things start to get tough at work … stop, take a deep breath, and count the things that make your job worthwhile (and there are things that make every job worthwhile, even if it is only that you have the money to pay your rent/mortgage!).

2. Be A Professional

Your professional life is in your hands … know this deep within your soul. Look for ways to enhance your professional experiences, to network with new contacts (as well as within your organization), ask your boss for feedback. Develop a game plan … a list of professional goals, with steps on how you intend to reach those goals. Review and update this plan every three months, to keep it fresh.

3. Define A Part Of Your Job That You Enjoy

Break your job down into its parts and pieces, and define something that you really enjoy doing. Bring joy into this part of your day by performing this task consciously … working in the moment, and giving thanks for the pleasure that it brings you.

4. Learn To Network

Networking is not just outside of the office … we network within the organization that we work for also. This is an excellent way to keep up with what is happening at work, with new projects, mergers, job openings … all of the trivia of life that is so very important. Sitting and sulking about not being kept in the loop about something is not the things to do … talk to the appropriate people, and take the actions that you need to take to be a part of the loop, to have a full understanding of your work environment. This will make your work like a whole lot easier!

5. Identify Stress Areas

Saying yes to everything that comes across your desk is one way to literally invite stress to take up residence! Your work time, and your work energy, needs to be devoted to things that you know that you can accomplish within a necessary deadline. Over-committing ourselves can lead to projects not completed; projects completed, but not on time; and our co-workers seeing us as the dumping ground for whatever they do not want to do. An extension of this is that if we take on more than we can possibly complete, we will lose respect with co-workers, and they won’t consider us for projects that could not only be interesting, but that could further our careers.

6. Keep A Positive Outlook

We have all worked with people who had nothing good to say about their job, their co-workers, or the company they are working for.  If you look for negativity, you will find it. If you are constantly looking for negativity, that is all that you will end up finding. Choose to be happy, choose to avoid gossiping, and choose to avoid hanging around with people that are negative. Your time at work will be happier if you are positive, and there is a much better chance that you will be considered for that interesting project, or that lovely promotion, if your supervisors see you as a positive, happy person.

7. Develop A Personal Vision For Your Career

Develop a vision for where you want your career to take you. Do this in a conscious manner. Make sure that your energy, your thoughts, your actions, are focused on furthering this personal vision. This will have an automatic effect of forcing you to pay attention to the important issues at work, so that you will know how to react to them. In this manner you can further your own interests, or, if the imminent changes are not in your favor, you have the time to take care of any perceived collateral damage.

8. Is It Time To Leave?

There comes a time when we realize that the job we are in is not worth it, and we need to start looking elsewhere. This will take a giant burden off of your shoulders, because you recognize that your time with your current company is now limited … limited to the time that it takes you to find another job! Things are not as hard when we can carry an internal smile with us. This is one of the most freeing decisions that we can make.

9. Pay Attention To Work Relationships

This is more than networking … this is being in the present with your work relationships. Listen to what the other person has to say. Give them feedback. Understand what their agenda is, and be supportive of them, so they will be supportive of you. Above all … be genuine.

10. Get Up And Move Around!

Make an effort to stand up at least once an hour, move your shoulders, walk around a bit if you can. The small amount of time that you spend doing this will allow you to get back to your work with a fresh perspective. At the end of the day, you are going home a happier, healthier person because you are not taking the stress that builds up in your body with you.