Happiness is the ultimate goal, isn’t it? So no matter how much success you find financially or through status, you should truly be happy with the career you have. However, the ingredients to happiness aren’t always obvious. Lifehack tries to make them a little clearer with an article about covering eight ways to be happy with the career you lead.
1. Earn Respect
If you’re hated around the office, good luck being happy with the career you’re in. To have a job that you enjoy, make an effort to earn the respect of everyone in the workplace, whether they be your peer or boss or underling. Whoever they are, their opinion of you is going of affect your day, though not necessarily in an obvious way. Don’t suck up or be fake but make sure people have a real reason to like you.
2. Respect Your Teammates
To be happy with the career you lead you have to be among the kinds of people you’ll be proud to work with. I said teammates instead of co-workers because to feel fulfilled your output should feel like real team effort.
3. Have Something To Look Forward To Every Day
Financial success only means so much if 40+ hours a week you’re doing work that doesn’t satisfy you. Make sure that everyday you’re doing something that you enjoy and that fulfills you. It can be something to do to get started with your workday, a pick-me-up halfway through it, or a reward for finishing a hard day’s work. Whenever you do that one task, make sure to take the time to enjoy it.
4. Have Some Control Over Your Schedule
Obviously the majority of workers can’t pick and choose when they work, but do your best to have some flexibility. Jobs where you have different shifts every week, such as being a waitress or a supermarket employee, aren’t right for most people. Make sure you can at least know when you’ll be working most days.
5. Keep Leveling Up
Success isn’t staleness. You should be consistently if not constantly moving up the ladder so that you keep reaching new heights. To be happy with your career, keep pushing yourself closer to the top of the mountain. WARNING: Do use a ladder to try to climb a mountain.
6. Be Good At Your Job
If you suck at what you do, you won’t be happy with the career you lead. Even if your output is passable to your superiors, make sure that you really are skilled at what you’re getting paid for, or else you’ll never really feel fulfilled.
7. Work For A Company That Supports You
A lot of companies are solely about the bottom line, leaving little room for emotions to come into play. If that kind of business works for you then great, but at least make sure they have your back. If you can’t work for a company that will get behind you no matter what, at least work for a company that finds you indispensable.
8. Get Paid Fairly
You’re probably not going to be happy if you’re making minimum wage. The problem isn’t even totally about the struggle to pay for living expenses; it’s the fact that you’re being being undervalued by your employer. Climb out of the low-pay hole that employer put you in either by angling for a raise, finding a better job in the same industry, or looking for a new career path entirely.
9. Have An Impact
If you’re just pushing papers around, you’re too interchangeable to feel like you’re actually important to your company. Make sure that at least some of what you do everyday is stuff that can only be done by you.
Featured photo credit: Vase Petrovski via flickr.com
