Joy Hacks to Instantly Improve Life at Work
We naively think that we have to wait for a better boss, a better job, or the end of our workday to experience more positive emotions. However, drawing on decades of research, Joseph Grenny, one of the authors of Crucial Conversations & Co-chairman of VitalSmarts L.C. gave tips – what he calls joy hacks that can allow you to change your day—and, if they become habitual, even your life.
Five Joy Hacks
1. Pay attention.
Slowing down 10% will make you feel 50% better about most any experience you have.
Try it when you’re bustling in the airport from one gate to the next. Simply slow down a notch, look around, smile at someone, notice how your body feels, or pay attention to aesthetics of the terminal. When you get to the next gate notice how much less stressed you feel and how simply engaging your senses generated a little more joy.
2. Hold a crucial conversation you’ve been procrastinating.
Many people let issues fester for years — and the primary reason they don’t open up is their fear of possible negative consequences. What they fail to consider is the certain negative consequences they are already experiencing by not speaking up. When we face uncomfortable interpersonal concerns, we tend to think only of the risks of speaking up — and never the risks of the status quo.
If you’ve been putting off a crucial conversation, ask yourself, “What price am I paying — and will I continue to pay — for continuing to suffer in silence?” If as you honestly assess this price you conclude it is too high — take back some joy by getting it done.
3. Do an Appreciation Audit.
Research show that one of the fastest ways to change your mood and generate joy is to practice gratitude. This works even with really foul moods.
A great joy hack is to set a 5-minute appointment on your calendar to do an appreciation audit. Think of a gratitude category that is relevant to your day or place: for example, if you are travelling in Wisconsin — the category can be “Five Wisconsin Things I’m Grateful For.”
As a thought from the category comes to you, take a breath, connect with your feeling of gratitude about that item and ponder it for a moment. By the time you get to the fifth item you’ll be in a much different emotional place.
4. Generate “completion buzz.”
As mentioned in our last newsletter, small incomplete tasks generate far more stress than they’re worth. You can create an embarrassingly huge hit of joy by simply making a list of five “easy wins” that have been orbiting your brain but that you have not committed to complete.
Pick five that you can complete in 15 minutes or less. You’ll get the first stress relief rush when you simply get them out of your head and onto a small piece of paper. Next, make a small tic box next to each. Finally, take the fifteen minutes and get them done. You’ll LOVE the feeling.
5. Help someone.
Think of someone in the workplace whose spirit or load you can lift—then do it. Respond to a request for help. Share a website that would be relevant to a problem someone else is trying to solve. Cover someone’s phone. It doesn’t have to be huge—but the emotional payback will be.
Give yourself a joy jolt by reaching out and giving a hand.
Remember, the big idea here is that we have far more control over our experience of a workday than we suspect. Prove it for yourself. Pick one of the joy hacks above and try it for a week — we hope that it works well for you.
(above is edited from an article by Joseph Grenny, coauthor of Crucial Conversations published on Linkedin. May 5, 2015)
Image by peoplecreations on Freepik