Beth Thomas's Blog, page 2

6 Ways to Get and Stay Happy at Work

1 – Why is it so important to be happy at work?       

Happiness at work not only impacts your career, your productivity and success, your relationships but also positively impacts your company’s bottom line and customer relationships! We spend WAY too much time at work to not be happy. Associates that are happy at work are promoted more frequently. (HBR study)

 2 - How can being unhappy at work affect both your professional and personal life?

There is a fine line between Happiness at work and at home. Many tips in my book are relevant and applicable to both happiness at work AND in life! When you are unhappy at home, it impacts your work and vice versa. The law of attraction theory is so important, here because positive people truly do attract positive things in their life, same being true when you are negative or unhappy. The “whoa’s me” attitude will only get people to run from you not towards you. Positive people have a great attitude in the way they deal with the cards they have been dealt. Their attitude in the way they deal with difficult people, situations and how they move on and make things better. I would hire someone for their attitude more than pedigree any day of the week – I can train them to “play well” with others.

3 – You may like your job but the stress of it weighs you down and makes you unhappy. How can stressed-out, time-crunched employees bring joy back into their job?

This is the time to be grateful. It’s the time to be unselfish. This is when I stop and reflect on the all the good things I have in my life / career / job. This is the time when I sit back and look at ways to help others. Helping others is the #1 way to achieving long term sustainable happiness. And finally this is the time where I know I need to step away and take a break. Schedule a few days off, find an outlet on the weekend to “get away” and rest your mind and soul in order to rejuvenate yourself. Taking time away can also give you the ability to step back out of the “hamster wheel” and think clearly on new creative ways to re-energize you and your business and possibly think of solutions to problems that have had you “stuck”.

4 – How can you change negative thoughts into positive ones?

There is a method to this madness.
Deal with facts not fiction. Many of us want to worry about things that will never happen or “assume” ill intent from a co-worker or boss. When you find yourself feeling this way – ask yourself – what are the “facts” I am dealing with, separate it out from the fiction and perhaps you can have a more positive outlook on the situation.Give others the benefit of the doubt, so many of us go to the negative rather than the positive when others are involved. Use some cognitive therapy – ever time a negative thought comes into your head, STOP and think of one positive thing about the situation. Do it for a few weeks and notice how quickly you are creating a new habit that will enhance your happiness at work!
 5 – How can managers create a positive working culture where employees can be happy ?
I love this question! Here's my top ten ways to create a culture where your people are happy at work:
Show you care, MBWA (manage by walking around)Ensure they are doing the work they love and are skilled to do Understand what motivates them to create a customized reward and recognition program around that Hire the right talent that aligns with the values of the companyAllow them to have line of sight to the vision and input into your strategies and how they are executed – value their opinion!Communicate often and openly Get rid of toxic employees that bring everyone down Create fun events – potlucks / happy hoursDo something Philanthropic together and most importantlyLead by example – Put your money where your mouth is and walk the talk! if you want positivity, you must be positive yourself! If you say work / life balance is important – then make sure you have it! 6 – If happiness comes from being generous or philanthropic how do you apply this to your business plan or life?
As I mentioned, long term sustainable happiness come from helping others. This is a proven fact. The more we help people, the more we feel good about what we are doing and it’s much bigger than “happiness at work” – this spills over to “happiness at life”. IF being happy at work is all about what YOU alone achieve, your happiness will be short term. If you look for opportunities to make others successful by helping them, it will come back to you tenfold – at work AND at home!

Impacts to happiness at work....

When I speak across the nation to companies / conferences, one of the first questions I ask is "Have you ever defined happiness for yourself?" Inevitably, out of sometimes hundreds of people, I will only get a few hands raised. This strikes me as odd, as euphoria for most is typically to have "Happiness" in your life. If that is so coveted, then why are people not defining it for themselves so they can truly go after it? Anytime you want something, want to improve something, want to achieve something, you focus on it, right? You dedicate time to it. Whether it is getting in shape, stopping a bad habit, or getting a promotion, you need to work at it. Happiness doesn't just "happen". You have to figure out what it means to you and create a PLAN on what you are going to do to go after it. Finding happiness at work is the same thing. What impacts your happiness at work? What does happiness at work mean to you? After you define it, what are you doing to achieve it? Whatever those triggers are for you, how do you make them happen? It's up to you to go after those things that DO impact your happiness at work. IF you can't find it where you are, maybe it's time for a change?

What means more to you? Your career or your life?

Recently I had lunch with a friend who is very successful. He is in a senior leadership role with a fortune 500 company. We were talking about retirement, IF and when we will ever be able to get there! We talked about how as we get older, our desires change. Desires around our careers, our life, how much money we need to make and how we spend our time. Could we make more money, probably, but at what cost? Is it really worth what we would have to give up? We all continually need to evaluate if we are "winning". Winning to me right now is more about helping my clients be successful and having the balance in my life to be there for my family and friends. At the end of the day, nobody ever says they wished they worked more, they say they wished they spent more time with loved ones. Many do not figure this out until it's too late. They work 70 hours a week right up until retirement, then they have nobody to share their free time with. It's the "Cat's and the Cradle" scenario of life. Are you making sacrifices right now? If so, are they the right ones? Ones you won't regret? Think about what's most important in life and make sure your time is allocated appropriately.

Hang with a gang that gets it!

In my book, there is a chapter "Hang with a gang that gets it".

You remember when your parents used to tell you the lesson of "guilt by association"? What this meant was if your friends did bad things, others would assume you are doing those bad things as well. Well, unfortunately, this lesson is not far off in the business world! When leadership sees you hanging around a crowd that may be the "gossip group" or "negative nellies" or the "slackers" they may assume you are the same way, which would NOT be a good thing for your career. Trust me, I can pretty much guarantee those folks are not on the "high-potential" list! Rather, Hang with a gang that gets it, meaning find the ones that are successful and steal shamelessly from what they do! Emmulate good behavior! And shoot for the behavior that is recognized in your culture! Whatever it is, you learn best from people you aspire to be. Look for your role model today and start working towards success!

How important is happiness to you?

Ask yourself the question, How important is happiness to me? I am thinking there are not many of you out there that won't answer this question with a "Not very!". Rather, you would answer with "Maybe the most important thing in my life is being happy". Like anything that is important to you, getting better at a sport, becoming a VP at work, achieving more spiritual growth in your life, etc., takes hard work, focus and dedication to achieve. So, the next question is....What are you doing to achieve happiness in your life? How are you focusing on it? Have you even defined it? What does happiness mean to you? What if I could tell you, I can help you achieve happiness at not only work, but also at home. Powered by Happy if filled with PRACTICAL, APPLICABLE and PROVEN strategies on helping you get there. This is really not a plug on my book, but the information in the book is the top ten tips on achieving happiness. What else in your life deserves your attention more than focusing on achieving happiness?

Blog about the book...

I randomly find out great people out there who are reading POWERED BY HAPPY...see the notes of the latest and greatest review...

http://mlinspace.com/thoughts/book-po...

Where's Beth?

April 20, 1 p.m.: Cornerstone Webinar, Retaining Top Talent
April 27, 11:30 p.m. - 1 p.m.: FX Conference Webinar, Succession Planning
April 27, 3:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.: Business First Author Expo, OCLC
May 18, 1:30 p.m. - 3 p.m., Change Management Webinar
June 9: Ohio Ambulance & Medical Transportation Association Conference Speaker, Newark, OH
June 26: BEMA Keynote Speaker, Santa Barbara, CA

Fox News in the morning

Watch Fox News in the morning in Columbus Wed., March 15th. I will be on speaking about How to love your job, even though you hate your boss!