Are You Happy Enough?

Recently I asked a client who is a senior manager, “Ed, are you happy?” He paused for a second and replied, “Why do you ask?” Then Ed told me his company didn’t hire me to help him in the happiness department. The CEO wanted me to coach Ed to improve the performance of his team. Ed wondered what his happiness had to do with their performance. It's not something he had given much thought to.

I wasn’t surprised by Ed’s response. Whether in the workplace or life, there isn’t agreement on how important happiness is. It’s not that we entirely dismiss the role of happiness—it’s on our list, but who knows how far down it is. At least until we get burned out, can’t get along at all or someone quits at work or in the marriage. That’s when we ask, “How are you doing?” Otherwise, we go on about our business.

If you don’t want to wait on a crisis to check in on the happiness factor, here are three happiness check points:

The You Checkpoint:
The foundation for happiness is having positive energy about yourself and your place in the world. At work that means feeling valued for who you are as a human being and for the contributions you make to your team and organization. In life, having positive energy about yourself includes knowing who you are, what you want and connecting with others and making a difference in your world.

If you’re not happy with you, everything else in life gets cheated. You can be a star at work and feel proud of that, but work can never be a substitute for feeling awesome about yourself. If you don’t respect and love yourself aside from work, what happens on the weekends or if you lose your job or when you retire? Now’s the time to ask yourself, “How happy are you with you?”

The Progress Checkpoint:
I’ve had clients that worked long hours on extended projects or endured health challenges for a year or more. They knew they weren’t going to make giant leaps forward often. What kept them going were the small successes along the way. Experience tells us you don’t turn a team or a marriage around in one month and celebrate your big win.

You take small but important steps and honor each one. Taking action and seeing progress (even the smallest amount) keeps us happy and fuels our further success. The smart leader or manager or parent has a clear vision and goals—but more than that, he or she is really good about noticing and celebrating progress along the way. Now’s the time to ask yourself, “Am I feeling happy about my progress because I’m noticing it and rewarding myself for it?”

The Relationships Checkpoint:
Life—even the part we call “work”—is all about relationships. It’s about trust, communication, meaning, contribution and a sense of belonging. When I walk into a company I can feel the energy—can’t you? It’s either vibrant and inviting or it’s lifeless and dull. People are either there because they really want to be or they’re there because of the paycheck. Happiness and unhappiness at work isn’t a theoretical concept. You can feel the difference right away.

When we’re happy with the people we’re with, we want to be around them and we go out of our way to add to their happiness and well-being. We share, we collaborate, we celebrate and we’re just happy to be around each other. When we’re not happy with the people we’re with, we do what we have to do but not much more. We keep important information to ourselves and when someone fails, we’re just glad it wasn’t us. That’s the difference between happiness and unhappiness at work or at home. Now’s the time to ask yourself, “How happy am I with my relationships?”

—Alan Allard, Executive Coach