What Makes Your Work Life Satisfying?

So far, we have looked at happiness and wellbeing in general, but this course is mainly focused on helping you find satisfaction in your work life. By ‘work’ we mean of course your chosen career(s) and job(s), but also more than this: it could include volunteering, helping run a club or community group in your neighbourhood, or developing a new hobby.

“The hours are pretty good. But now you come to mention it, most of the minutes are actually pretty lousy….” Vogon Guard, in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.

• relationships and friendships at work
• having a good leader
• clear goals
• personal autonomy
• a variety of activities and skills
• a feeling that the tasks undertaken have significance.

PLEASURE: Do we enjoy what we are doing, and how we do it? Do we have fun?

PURPOSE: Do we feel that what we do makes a ‘contribution’ which we value?

We will each spend around 80,000 hours of our life ‘working’ in this way, so let’s try to make it satisfying. And to do this, we should actually enjoy what we do, not just the results.

Fisher, C. D. (2010), Happiness at Work. International Journal of Management Reviews, 12: 384–412

Dolan, P (2014), Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life