CAREER SPECIAL..3 STEPS TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY AT WORK

3 STEPS TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY AT WORK
1. Document Your Current Rules
Set aside a half-hour of alone time and, being as honest as you can, write down the answers to these two questions:

• What has to happen for me to be happy?
• What has to happen for me to be unhappy?

Now examine those rules.  Have you made it easier to miserable than to be happy?  If so, your plan is probably working.
2. Create a Better Set of Rules
Using your imagination, create and record a new set of rules that would make it easy for you to be happy and difficult to be miserable.  Examples:

• "I enjoy seeing the people I work with each day."
• "I really hate it when natural disasters destroy my home." 

Don't worry whether or not these new rules seem "realistic"–that's not the point.  All internal rules are arbitrary, anyway.  Just write rules that would make you happier if you really believed them.
3. Post the New Rules Where You'll See Them
When you've completed your set of "new" rules, print out them out and post copies in three places: your bathroom mirror, the dashboard of your car, and the side of your computer screen.  Leave them up, even after you've memorized them.
Having those new rules visible when you're doing other things gradually re-programs your mind to believe the new rules.  You will be happy at work.  It's really that simple.

 - Geoffrey James