Happy International Day of Happiness!

This year, we celebrate this day on March 20. And what better way to do so than to intentionally cultivate more joy in work? 

No matter whether you’re at work to punch a timecard or to fulfill your life’s purpose, we could all use a little more joy in our day-to-day lives. The good news is that you don’t need to totally overhaul your career to do so. By taking a bottom-up approach to job satisfaction, you can instantly boost your happiness at work — and maybe inspire your coworkers to do the same.

Here are four ways to cultivate more joy at work, whether you work from home or are back in the office. 

Create a Community

Community is so important in everything we do. 

From our personal to professional and even spiritual sides, what we do doesn’t matter half as much as who we do it with. And even though we can’t always choose our coworkers, we do get to choose our work community.

Take time to consciously create a community of like-minded workers that have your back. 

Creating a community can help you avoid job search burnout, stay productive, and increase your overall happiness at work. 

Connect With Your Coworkers for More Joy at Work

Try connecting with your coworkers outside of your normal interactions. Make coworker connection a priority.  

Make meaningful connections with your coworkers, meaning try to push past surface interactions. Try to (respectfully) learn details about your coworkers’ lives, including what motivates them, their career goals, and more. 

With more and more companies switching to remote and hybrid work models, we expect finding new ways to connect with coworkers to be a major workplace trend of 2022. 

Get a Virtual Work Partner

If you work remotely, connecting with coworkers (or creating a work community) may not be so easy. 

One of the big benefits of working from home (or in a hybrid model) is that you don’t need to deal with difficult coworkers IRL all the time. But one of the big downsides is that you miss out on a sense of community, too.

If you don’t have coworkers or you just don’t click with them, get a virtual work partner. 

This person could be a friend or colleague that works remotely or even a friend of a friend. Even if that person doesn’t work in your industry, you can connect on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. 

Struggling to make it work with a virtual work partner? 

Consider using an online tool, such as Focusmate, to create a sense of community. Online coworker platforms like this match you with other people who need a little motivation and connection. Get randomly matched or request specific work partners. 

Make a Gratitude List

Yes, gratitude lists work both in and out of the office! 

While these lists may sound basic, they can make a major impact. And the best part? There’s data that shows gratitude lists can make you happier, more fulfilled, and suffer less anxiety.  

List What You Love

Work isn’t always fun. If it were, it wouldn’t be called ‘work’ — amirite? 

All joking aside, nothing in life is fun 100% of the time. But tasks you spend most of your waking hours completing should (at the very least) be enjoyable some of the time. And there probably was a time that you enjoyed your job. 

Remember that moment when you found out you nailed the interview for your current job? Or that you were being promoted? It’s so easy to get caught up in why we don’t love our jobs that we forget all about the good stuff.

Send Thank-You Notes

One way to take your gratitude list to the next level is to send thank-you notes to your boss and coworkers. 

When you make a gratitude list, there’s no one to share your joy with. When you tell someone you’re grateful for them, you make them happy and you also make you happy, too. 

Studies show that making yourself feel good won’t make you as happy as making others feel good. Spending $5 on yourself won’t reap the same benefits as dropping that $5 bill into a tip jar or buying someone else a coffee — and the same can be said for bringing joy to your coworkers, too.

We so often forget to thank others when thanks are due. And when we thank someone for clear communication, cubicle camaraderie, or having our backs? They’re more likely to continue to do so down the line, leading to more joy at work and outside of work, too. 

Savor the Experience

Most of us don’t get the luxury of a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants schedule. We often do the same tasks over and over each day. 

While this type of work is very efficient, it’s not the most exciting. And there’s a good chance that all the days seem the same day after day is because they are!

When our brains remember similar events, they tend to lump all of those events together. So, five days of similar boring commutes all get stored as one event, and we often remember the worst days more vividly. 

All this means that we’re not really remembering much of our days. If we want to be present enough to notice the good stuff, we need to be willing to experience the not-so-good stuff, too.

Savoring allows us to take everything in. Yes, we’ll be more present for the uncomfortable stuff, but we’ll also be more likely to notice and remember the good stuff, too. 

Learn a New Skill

Whether you’re trying to better your skills at your current job, trying to break into the tech industry, or just need a little more joy at work, we recommend learning a new skill.

Sometimes our jobs feel dull because they are dull. When we’ve mastered a skill, we’re less likely to enter a state of flow. 

Flow is defined as a “state of complete immersion in an activity.” To enter this state, we need to do tasks that are enjoyable but also a little challenging. If we perform a task that is too easy, we won’t reach that flow state.

One way to find new ways to cultivate more joy and flow in work is to learn a new skill. 

This skill could be totally related to your job (like learning a new program or task), or it could be a soft skill, like communication, empathy, or time management. What you learn isn’t as important as the act of learning itself. 

You could even talk to your boss about possibly taking a class on company time or getting a class comped. 

Do you need a little more joy at work? Are bottom-up approaches not cutting the mustard anymore? If you’re ready to make a shift (or even just thinking about one), consider joining the Rise community!