Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, a father-son wrote an exceptional book about happiness, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Many of the experts on happiness are claiming it is one of the best, if not the best, book ever written on the subject.
Here is a very intriguing snippet from Gretchen Rubin’s interview with the Deniers:
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Ed: Analyzing data always makes me happy. Seriously. Possibly I am a weird person. But when I examine data, I almost always feel that I am discovering something new. And it is a quiet activity that is calm, and I can just think and examine what is going on in the world via the data. I think what this example shows is that the happy activity need not be recreational; it could even be “work,” which might in some cases seem like play. And it shows the tremendous diversity — we don’t need to try “comfort food” just because some magazine recommends that. We need to find our own comfort activities.
A happy trinity of work:
- Can you identify what makes you happier?
- Can you blur the lines between work and play?
- Did you think it was possible to find happiness in examining data?
Take time and make efforts to ensure that you engage in work that contributes to your happiness and employee engagement will never feel like an onerous imposition.
David Zinger is a leading expert on employee engagement. He is committed to creating authentic and sustained employee engagement for the benefit of all. Contact David at (204) 254-2130 or Email dzinger@shaw.ca.
One of the first ways to help determine what makes you happier is to first identify what makes you excited. Do you get excited about writing a book? Writing code? Analyzing a process?
Before happiness (and passion, for that matter) comes excitement. If you don’t know what your passion is or what makes you happy, look for what makes you excited.
Scott:
That was an exciting comment. Seriously good point about excitement and often people don’t look at that very closely or maybe don’t even feel that excitement could be part of working.
David