10 Ways to Enjoy Work

Do you know how much of our time we spend at work? It’s over 90,000 hours over a lifetime, that is one third of our lives. So it is quite imperative that we spend this time not only to earn our livelihood but also we really enjoy the work. Work is a gift. Have we not heard work is worship? Then why do we say “thank god it’s Friday”? Why is it we need to enjoy work? That is because if we don’t enjoy our work, most likely we will not be successful in our work as well. Of course, we want to be successful at work, don’t we? In this post, I will share 10 ways to enjoy work.

“The best way to enjoy your job is to imagine yourself without one.”

– Oscar Wilde

Why Enjoy Work?

Do you know what TGIF stands for? It’s more of an American colloquial. It stands for Thank God It’s Friday. Although it makes sense since it gives us the change to rejuvenate ourselves after a long week at work, but if it means starting Monday morning in a dreaded way, then there is a flaw with the work system. And probably we need to question whether we are enjoying our work? And more why we need to enjoy work?

Fuels Your Body, Mind and Soul

Enjoying our work is the like the fuel that drives our body, mind and soul. If we enjoying doing something, then we automatically get the energy to continue doing it and also able to speed up the momentum rather than maintain the momentum. Does this sound familiar?

Maintains Composure and Equanimity at Work

Enjoying work is a more pre-requisite for maintain the composure and equanimity at work. It’s likely that one can become irritable and grumpy at work if we don’t enjoy our work. That could affect our working culture, inter- personal relationships at work, and most likely our productivity and success at work. In a nutshell, irascible behavior could affect our ability to take make the right decisions for our business and our people. Does that make sense?

Motivates and Energize Others

Enjoying our work helps us motivate ourselves first and motivate and energize others. Our work life is like a marathon and not a stint. So it’s imperative we motivate ourselves and other to be successful in the long haul. What do you think?

Enhances Self Esteem

How we feel mostly drives self-esteem. Also, a deep-rooted sense of satisfaction drives both self-esteem and self respect. So how is enjoying at work related to self-esteem? If we find our work enjoying, then likely we would have more job satisfaction and derive a sense of pride from our work. That could be a source of boosting both our self-esteem and self-respect. It is imperative we continually gain self-respect from what we do at work, since mostly like that, transcends to how we behave and manage our relationships at home as well.

10 Ways to Enjoy Work

So how do we really enjoy at work? Which is also related to finding fulfillment at work? As Steve Jobs said, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?”

Find Purpose at Work

To enjoy our work, we need to find our purpose at work. Finding purpose in life is all about being able to define what value your work is bringing to the world. Let’s say if someone asks, what do you do for a living? Then the answers could be, I am a writer. But the question could be, what value your writing brings to the world? If I say I write to help my readers find fulfillment in life, then it makes a lot of difference. Doesn’t it?

Love Your Work

Again, this might sound like a cliche. Well, it could be, but without loving our work, it is hard to enjoy work. So how do we love our work? It gets back to finding purpose in your work and also finding your passion in life. If your work is your passion or one of your passions, then likely you will not struggle to love your work. Sometimes we love our work, but also we may have another passion. Something that we feel excited about working on even after we get back from our livelihood jobs or work on weekends. Is it true to you? That could bring us into another interesting topic of whether you could pursue your passion for your livelihood job? And then, if it comes to financial play, then how much money do you need to live a fulfilled life?

Foster Relationships at Work

Relationship is one of the 10 drivers for finding fulfillment in life. Robert Waldinger, director of a 75-year-extensive study of adult development, concluded that the most critical contributor to living a fulfilled life is strong relationships.

What matters is also our relationships at work, since we spend a significant portion of our lives at work. If we can build dependable relationships at work, it can be a significant support system at work which can drive happiness and enjoyment at work. We may just love to go to work because we love working with our colleagues at work.

Develop or Build On Strong Values at Work

Work culture is a significant component of enjoying work. Work culture is not only dependent on workplace policies but also driven by the people who build and develop that positive culture continually. So our efforts to foster developing a culture of mutual respect, valuing individuals, and diversity of ideas/ cultures can innovation and subsequently drive our happiness at work.

Develop Collaboration at Work

Collaboration is our ability to work together, complimenting each other’s skill sets and help each so that we can create value for our stakeholders. So why is collaboration critical to enjoying our work? For sure, building relationships at work is critical to developing collaboration. So our ability to collaborate effectively is an immense support system at work which can drive satisfaction and enjoyment at work.

Serve Others

Fostering relationships and developing collaboration sequels us to serving colleagues at work. Hence, if we can selflessly serve others at work, it can drive immense job satisfaction. Have you heard about servant leadership? We all are leaders at our workplaces in different capacities and ways. So the ability to serve others is a key component of finding happiness at work and therefore enjoying our work. As a result, it could build our ability to influence and lead. Sounds familiar?

Develop Others

One of the best ways of giving back is developing others. Others have spent their time and effort to develop ourselves. So it is our duty to give back to the workplace by developing others. And giving back through developing other can be incredibly satisfying. Developing others could be as providing training, coaching, and guidance. Therefore, developing others could be an opportunity to leverage enjoying our work.

Recognize and Appreciate Others

When we appreciate and recognize others more than what the other feels, it also provides us with immense joy and happiness. So always appreciating others can be a skill, and with that we can find happiness for ourselves at work and therefore enjoy our work. Life can be short and our day at our workplace can also be short, so it might be an opportunity we might not want to miss. Recognize and appreciate others as much as you can daily.

Show Gratitude at Work

Work is a gift, and it can really privilege us to be employed. There is so much unemployment in the world and so many people who are much less fortunate than us. So showing our gratitude every day for being employed doing the work that we love can be an immense source of enjoyment at work. In whatever form we express gratitude, it can be one of the most incredible sources of happiness.

Do Your Duty and Not Expect Back

Within the Hindu religion in Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says that one must do one’s duties, but one has no control over the fruits. Nor must one claim any right to the results. This might be difficult to fathom? Because we are always expecting results for our efforts. So doing our work as a duty and expecting nothing back can be a stretch for most, but this could lead to ultimate enjoyment and fulfillment at work. This could be quite possible if we truly love and enjoy our work. Please let us know what you think.

Conclusion

So enjoying work could be both a paradox and inevitably easy, depending on our situations and how we approach work. We can enjoy work if we want to. Again, we spend one third of our entire lives at work. So it’s worthwhile to spend sometime thinking, do you enjoy your work? Do you have more ways to share besides these 10 ways to enjoy work?