Each morning hoards of disgruntled or depressed workers trudge out into traffic dreading the workday ahead. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, a happier workplace may be closer than you think. And a great first step to achieving a happier existence is to practice awareness.
Awareness is kind of like finding your spot on a GPS screen. It not only tells you where you are, but more importantly, where you are in relation to everything else.
For me, awareness means two things: “Seeing” and “Understanding”.
The first part: seeing, is pretty simple. It’s more of an inventory exercise than anything else. When I first started this process, I discreetly wrote down everything that bothered me in a small “happiness journal” I carried with me. It didn’t take long to fill, either. This step was important because it helped me to be more conscious of those things that threatened my happiness. That way when they occurred in the future I could get one step ahead of the emotion.
The second part: understanding, grows and evolves out of seeing. To help me understand I had to explore all the things that I wrote down in my journal—things that bothered me about my job, my co-workers, friends and family. Now the trick was to strip away any emotional baggage from the process. I worked hard to place no labels or judgements on these so-called problems.
Just by seeing these things in this way, I gained a greater understanding about them and from that understanding grew a greater sense of awareness. That awareness allowed to see my unhappiness in a new light.
I realized that my unhappiness did not originate from any of these outside sources. The sensation of unhappiness was created at my end as I noticed a “so-called negative event” and made a judgement about it. A philosopher who lived in ancient Greece by the name of Epictetus once wrote: “Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinions of the things that happen.” Think about that quote for a minute. We may create our unhappiness, but we are in charge of our happiness too! This gives us all the power. When was the last time you went to work filling empowered? Tomorrow morning try to take on a new sense of awareness about the things that have traditionally bothered you. Maybe start your own happiness journal. Ask yourself: Is my unhappiness really caused by others? Or is it more about how I relate to the people and events around me. And remember, you can control that relationship with practice and determination.