Living in harmony among ourselves and our environment is a natural, normal, and usual aspiration, in other words, we all aspire to a state of well-being that leads us to happiness. We will hardly find who can coherently define us unhappiness, rather it is defined by behaviors or habits that can deprive us of well-being and fullness; instead it may be easier for us to define how we can achieve
happiness.
Aristotle affirmed that happiness is an activity according to virtue. The happy man lives well and works well. Happiness is to achieve full satisfaction with who we are and what we have, so happiness is not an experience that comes to us from the outside, it is a feeling of fullness that occurs within us. If we could think of a time when we could say with all satisfaction:
it is almost certain that not everything was perfect at the time nor were all the problems or conflicts solved, but we felt that inner fullness that filled us with joy and moved us to love and share life with others, wishing that even they would reach our experience of well-being.
Being happy is the goal and everyone, except pathological existences, wants to live well, but everyone has different ideas of how to achieve it and proposes different routes to achieve it, according to their aspirations and lifestyle that develop in everyday life. Most of our working time is spent in the work activity we perform, whether at home or away, on our own or in relation to dependency, voluntarily or compensated, the truth is that daily, at least two-thirds of the 24 hours a day, we invest them at work and whatever the task we perform , it becomes necessary to feel good and make sense of what we do.
Managing happiness in the work environment is building work environments that generate harmony and well-being, this has a lot to do with the labor climate of the organization: motivation, opportunities for development and growth, adequate and comfortable physical place of work, perceive good economic compensation, among others. But it also has to do with avoiding harmful behavioral habits within the workplace because ultimately the one who decides to be right or wrong in the general sense is the person himself who occupies the job.
To manage happiness in work environments it is necessary to build spaces free of harmful behavioral habits that generate unhappiness, so we must:
- Take care of self-esteem and self-confidence, because we will not get the positive assessment of others if we think ill about ourselves.
- Give thanks for the blessings received: life, health, family, work, skills, resources… having a grateful heart will help us enjoy what we do.
- Develop the ability to accept criticism, being aware that we can make mistakes, avoiding placing ourselves on the level of victims.
- Respect the opinions and criteria of others so that they respect the considerations that we
may issue. - Get out of the comfort zone by setting challenging goals managed with flexibility and adequate assimilation of uncertainty to achieve personal and collective growth.
- To have an optimistic vision that allows us to expect favorable results while still observing the reality of situations that may arise.
- Live the present celebrating the achievements of your own and the team, creating commitment to the excellence of work performance.
Happiness Management at work is not a business fad, nor is it a misunderstanding romanticism. On the contrary, it is based on the findings of research that underpin that investment in occupational happiness has an impact on the economic results of the organization. Happiness must be taken into account from a strategic point of view by companies, with the enormous gain that working it also points to the well-being and quality of working life of people. In this sense we should consider providing employees with the necessary tools to develop personal schemes aimed at promoting the balance of working life with other areas, since happiness at work is important to be satisfied with life in general.
Several studies and surveys reveal that happy people work better and are less absent from their workplaces. Pablo Claver, international speaker on job happiness and writer of the book Its finally Monday, 13 recipes to enjoy your work,; claims that being happy is a mental decision and its no utopia.