Create Workplace Happiness: What’s the Secret?

Walking in to the room, you might find young people shooting pool, playing video games or sleeping. Sound like a college dorm? Or, maybe a recreation center? A scene like this is likely at Google, where the company affords employers 20% of their work time to do whatever they want. Traditional business gurus might label the policy as counterintuitive, but it has led to such innovations as Google News and Google Reader, two of the Mountain View-based company’s most popular products.

Consistently ranked as one of the best places to work, Google empowers its employees with time and responsibility — and they deliver. Creating a happy work environment isn’t just about free time, but companies that are able to blend a recipe benefit. According to a poll by Gallup.com, disengaged workers cost the U.S. economy $350 billion in lost productivity.

Ditch the time management strategies and create a happy culture to give your business a productivity boost.

Focus on Improvement

Most new employees get a natural high from starting a new job — the interview process, job offer and orientation come and go like a blur.

Eventually, however, everything slows down as work begins to feel tedious. There’s no way to fully recreate that new job feeling, but leaders can promote the ingredient that fuels the rush of a new job: improvement.

“When there is movement in your life, there is satisfaction,” Alleer Training and Consulting founder Steve McClatchy told Fastcompany.com.

Activities that promote improvement come in many shapes and sizes. Online training courses, personal performance reviews and job-assisting resources can all help employees get out of the mud. Consider making a purchase that promotes improvement every month. Dedicate an American Express small business credit card to investing in your employees. Not only will you see a boost in productivity, you’ll also get membership rewards, including cash back or points toward airline miles.

Recognize Success

Sometimes employees just need a simple pat on the back. Businesses that acknowledge employee success create a happier work culture, according to a recent study by the consulting firm Globoforce. According to the survey, 82% of employees that receive recognition have a positive impact on employee engagement.

Consider keeping a list of every employee and offering a word of recognition, no matter how small, every week. Over time, this habit will trickle down into interactions between employees, and a culture of encouragement will be well on its way.

Offer Flexibility

As business leadership piles on structure and regulations, creativity and happiness take a back seat. Like Google, businesses that are willing to offer employees flexibility in some way will see a happier and more productive staff. You don’t have to give up 20% of the day, either. Consider allowing your employees to trade or collaborate on projects. The potential for new opportunities will help fight off the the stale feeling that leads to disengagement.

Here’s a helpful article by Donald Latumahina who has a great blog called Life Optimizer.  We recommend checking it out.

15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situations

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins. Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive.

Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.

2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.

3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.

4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”

5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.

6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.

7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.

8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.

9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.

10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.

12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.

13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.

14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.

15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

An excerpt from “Notes to Myself: My struggle to become a person.” by Hugh Prather.

One kind of lie that I tell pops out in conversation and takes me by surprise. It alerts me to the areas where I feel inadequate and could be more accepting of myself. Sometimes I like to correct these lies on the spot, and when I do, contrary to what might be expected, most people do not think less of me. Another kind of lie begins when I believe I can foresee the consequences of something I have done. I start having fantasies about how I am going to explain things, and if these go unobserved, they tend to convince a part of my mind that things happened more advantageously than they did, and I end up telling a lie – half believing it to be true. If I become aware of these fantasies, I can do something that interrupts the pattern: I can get very clear about what did happen and what I would say if I wanted to be truthful. Just doing that much often takes a persistent effort. Afterward, however, I usually want to tell the truth, and if not, I can now see what response would feel least like self-betrayal.

To lie is to consciously communicate a false impression, and this can be done with words that are literally correct. What I want are words that reflect my heart, not my cleverness.

We love this essay by Jane Hamill as it is a message about the power of great marketing.

I consider myself a feminist, and I feel like a moron admitting it, but it’s true: I believe in Barbie.

For me, as a kid, Barbie was about cool clothes, a cool job, cool friends, and cool accessories – the airplane, the apartment building, and the camper. I learned to sew so I could make outfits for Barbie and her friends, who took turns being the airplane pilot, the doctor, the fashion designer. Barbie was never about Ken. He was always a little dusty and in the corner. My Barbie didn’t enter beauty contests, get married, or have children. She went to Paris and New York for fancy dinners and meetings.

Years later, I became a fashion designer. I lived in Paris and New York and went to fashion shows and fancy dinners. It was all bout the outfits and I began to wonder: Am I just a grown-up Barbie? I am a strong, intelligent woman. My idols are supposed to be Georgia O’Keeffe or Gloria Steinem or Madeleine Albright. Am I in danger of becoming a puff piece like Barbie?

When I achieved my Barbie-style life, I wasn’t so sure I wanted it. My husband is a prosecutor. He can change a person’s life forever in just one day. I come home from work and say, “I sold a great green dress today and you should have seen the shoes!”

Today, I’m sort of the anti-fashion designer fashion designer. I don’t particularly like shopping, and if someone says fashion is silly, I’m the first to agree. It’s just clothes. But if the sleeve is cut just right, it makes a difference. It makes a difference in how you present yourself. So many people have body issues. I hope I can help people like themselves more.

Clothes are personal. And they’re part of your identity. A few weeks ago, I got a call from a customer. She told me, now that she has my clothes to put on in the morning, she’s never felt so confident in her life. They may just be clothes, but they help her to be who she wants to be and to believe in herself.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed Malibu Barbie I loved looked nothing like my red-haired, freckled self. But that didn’t stop me from thinking I was just like Barbie – cool and independent and smart. It’s only as an adult that I realize that my belief in Barbie is really a belief in my own imagination, in whoever I imagined I could be, and whatever I imagined I could do. I believe in imagining a life, and then trying to live it.

From Finding Peace: Letting Go and Liking It , written by Paula Peisner Coxe

Satisfaction

In your constant need to attain, grow, acquire more, and become all that you can be, you may often find yourself dissatisfied with your life and those around you. On the one hand, it is OK to be dissatisfied when you turn this emotion into productive, constructive action. Being dissatisfied can be a motivator to try harder, do better and be your best. However, being dissatisfied and simply complaining or bemoaning your fate and doing nothing about changing yourself and your life’s circumstances is not OK. Doing nothing is dangerous, and it’s an easy trap to fall into.

Seeking satisfaction in all that you are allows you to become all that you can be. Seeking satisfaction takes energy. Being dissatisfied doesn’t. If you strive to accept yourself and find pleasure in your life, you walk in life with strength and empowerment. Victims see the world in terms of things being done to them. The strong see the world in terms of things they can do.

Satisfaction – feeling deeply and fully satisfied with yourself and the life you are building – is achieved in much the same way as a house is built. Each time you feel satisfied with yourself, you add another emotional and psychological building block to the foundation of self-esteem that will bring you shelter and comfort through the bad times and empowerment and support through the good times. But it can only happen one brick at a time.

Satisfaction is built on the smallest of things, the little moments in time that build relationships and create memories. It’s when you did what you thought you couldn’t or gave what you thought you didn’t have. It’s when you helped instead of hurt. It’s the smile that you gave to another. It’s the sense of self you created by facing your fears. It’s about looking forward, not backwards. Think about your own experiences that could be wonderful examples.

Work on honestly believing in and regularly reminding yourself of this affirmation: “I am doing the best with what I’ve got right now.”

At this time in your life, affirm over and over again that you are truly doing your best. It’s not to say that you can’t or won’t get better down the road. All it means is simply today, at this moment in time, you are truly doing your best with your God-given gifts. And that says a lot.

Acts of Satisfaction

• Give thanks for all that you are and all that you have.
• Appreciate the little things in life.
• Love the wrinkles and laugh lines that mark the experiences that make you who you are today
• Love the gifts you’ve been given.
• Love your body.
• Respect yourself.
• Love others.
• Lend your time and energy to a cause greater than your own.
• Focus on the little things that give great joy.
• Make your self-talk empowering and affirm, “I am doing the best with what I’ve got right now.”
• Reflect on those in your past and remind yourself that they, too, did the best with what they had at the time and forgive, forgive, forgive.

From the world’s best-selling book by Paul Arden.

It’s All My Fault

If you are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame others. Blame no one but yourself.

If you have touched something, accept total responsibility for that piece of work.

If you accept responsibility, you are in a position to do something about it.

Here are some common excuses for failure.

1. It was a terrible brief.
2. I need a better partner.
3. There wasn’t enough money to do it properly.
4. The director didn’t listen to me.
5. I was too busy on other projects.
6. I wasn’t given enough time.
7. The client took out the best ideas.

Most of these grievances are every day on every job. That won’t change.

The point is that, whatever other people’s failings might be, you are the one to shoulder the responsibility.

There are no excuses.

Idea Number 28

The Magic of Praise

What sort of people are you going to meet on the road of life? Will they be happy people who will add to the happiness of your life, or will they be weary, run-down rather miserable people who will tend to drag down your life into a gray monotone? Would you like to have everybody that comes into your life happy and lifting you up with joy? There’s a simple way to do it, you know. All it takes is a simple word of praise. I don’t mean insincere praise. I mean real, sincere, deep-down praise, not flattery.

I love the story about Johnny Figaro. Johnny Figaro was a thirteen-year-old Italian boy in New York. He was a real problem for his teachers. He seemed to be always fighting, spoiling the games of the younger children. He was rude to the teachers and the more he was punished, the more defiant he became.

In the 6th grade, he met a quiet, demure young teacher. One day, Johnny was sent inside at recess. He clumped noisily to his seat and slumped down. The young teacher looked at him quietly and then said very pleasantly, “Johnny, how nice you look today in that clean shirt.” He squared his shoulders and sat up straight. At noon, a frayed black tie was clumsily fastened under the collar of the shirt he was so proud of. The teacher very quickly noticed and praised him on it. Next day, his knotted shoelaces were replaced with new ones and his scuffed shoes were shined.

The young teacher turned to all those who were handling Johnny and said, “Just praise him, he’ll react. Just praise him.”

Johnny Figaro grew up to become president of a state university in the middle west. A boy who would probably have been doomed to the slums and poverty became a great academician because somebody took the trouble to praise him. Everything blossoms and flourishes under praise. Praise is like water on a rose.

Determine that you are going to be an instrument for good in your world by praising other people. Look at everybody you meet and look for the praiseworthy in them and praise it. Give a simple word of honest praise and you will change the identity of everybody that comes into your life. Give a word of praise because you’ll be acting as the Spirit of Love in God’s world when you do this.

My friend, you are brought into this world to serve as the instrument of God’s love. The easiest way to do it is simply to look for the good and to praise it.

From Dr. Robert Anthony’s, “50 Ideas That Can Change Your Life!”, this is idea number 8.

Success or Failure

Do you consider yourself a success or a failure? It seems to me that the majority of failures in this life of ours are nothing more or less than victims of their own mental attitudes. There isn’t any philosophy of life by which a person can achieve things that he doesn’t believe he can achieve. Yet the way always seems to open up for the person of determination, the person of faith and courage. It’s the victorious mental attitude, the consciousness of power and the sense of inner mastership that does the great things in our world. If you don’t have this mental attitude, why not begin today to cultivate it?

In this constantly changing world of ours, with its complex forces all about us, we sometimes cry out that we’re driven by the force of circumstance and yet, the Truth of it is, that we only do those things which we choose to do. Even though we may not want to go a certain way, we allow ourselves to go that way because it seems to offer the least resistance. We follow that path which is easier to follow, even though we know it will probably bring future discomfort and difficulties. We’re always at the crossroads of decision, in business dealings, in our family relationships, in our life, world and affairs. There’s always a necessity to choose and how important it is that we make the right choice.

You see, once we realize that the power to overcome any problem lies within us, we stop looking to other people or to circumstances outside us for help. When we begin to call intelligently on our Self, the inner Self of us, we find that we begin to tune in to an Inner Resource of mental power. The secret of that power is understanding the resource of our own thinking processes, our own attitudes. When we begin to realize that the power to do anything, to be what we want to be, to obtain anything that we want to attain, is within ourselves, then and then only, do we begin to live the life of success which is ours! I believe that nothing great has even been achieved except by people who dared to believe that there was, inside them, some Power greater, superior indeed, to any circumstances which faced them.

Now I’m sure that any person that’s believed this has been ridiculed by friends and neighbors; they’ve probably thought him or her to be some kind of fool, just as many people do today. They think it’s foolish and so they go on with their daily grind, living with sickness and lack until death comes along, almost as an anticlimax and a relief. Are you going to be one of those people, or are you going to listen to that Inner Power which is yours?

Begin to use the constructive power of your mind. Use your power of vision, because your thinking is the current that runs this motor of power. Connect your thinking powers to this Universal Subconscious and you become a super person. Try it. You will find that you’ve discovered the key to the solution of every problem in your life. Put simply, it means this: You can do anything you think that you can do if you think hard enough that you can do it! Let me say that again: You can do anything you think you can do if you will think hard enough that you can do it. Victory in any circumstance, success, comes first in the mind. See yourself as achieving that desire and it shall be yours.

Today’s post is a newspaper article that appeared in the Arizona Republic written by Renie Cavallari, the chief inspiration officer and CEO of Aspire, a strategic marketing company located in Phoenix, AZ. It contains excellent insight for both employees and employers alike.

Choosing Happiness at Work

Focus your energy at work on the positives

How do we find happiness in an unpredictable workplace?

We’ve all had those days when we say, “I’ve had it. I’m quitting.” But quitting usually isn’t the best solution. It is a fantasy that the grass is always greener on the other side. In the majority of cases, it’s just a pasture we don’t know.

Instead of focusing our energies on what is wrong, we need to focus on what is right and how we can make it even better. If we focus on how to make small improvements, over time we create a positive environment for ourself and others. Positivity can change anything.

You create your own positive environment through how you engage with others and your perspective toward situations around you. There are six pillars that help us create better relationships and environments. These are the foundation of our happiness.

Pillar 1: Connection.

This is about how we feel about each other, that sense of camaraderie and rapport. It allows for trust. Strengthening connections with co-workers improves our work environment. You have to work at connection and be willing to create it with people who may not think and act like you.

Pillar 2: Clean communication.

Clean communication is saying something in a way another person can hear. If you break rapport in your communication, you break connection. Also, listening is at the heart of all communication. The best communicators listen more than talk. A normal conversation should be 50 percent talking and 50 percent listening.

Pillar 3: Compassion.

That sense of understanding, empathy and acceptance we can choose to have with another person. It is our own choice to find what is right and be supportive of others even when we disagree. When we stand in judgment of others, we tend to create negative energy , which only creates negativity and scarcity and limits people and their potential.

Pillar 4: Higher purpose.

When we focus on how our work as an organization and as an individual impacts the lives of others, we think about our work differently. How we think affects how we feel and that determines how we participate.

Pillar 5: Participation.

Are you engaged? The more you engage in the workplace, the more pride and enthusiasm you will feel for your work. When we look to others to motivate us, we tend to perform at a mediocre level. When we allow others to inspire us, it powers us to participate at a more passionate level. This is where the top performers play.

Pillar 6: Responsibility.

Take responsibility for your work product, your perspective and look for how to make things a little better. Deliver results, and you will get noticed.

Remember, happiness is a choice. Happiness is not what happens, but what we choose to focus on, and how we choose to engage in our lives. You have the power to create your positive environment. Don’t give that power away.

On November 5th, 2012, Inc.com published a great article by Geoffrey James titled: 9 Habits That Will Make You Happier. It contains some great ideas and advice so we thought we would pass it along.

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

These minor changes in your daily routine will make a major difference in your life and career.
Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it’s almost impossible to make others happy if you’re not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you’re like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:

1. Start each day with expectation.
If there’s any big truth about life, it’s that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: “something wonderful is going to happen today.” Guess what? You’re probably right.

2. Take time to plan and prioritize.
The most common source of stress is the perception that you’ve got too much work to do. Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.

3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.
I’m not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. And never pass beggars without leaving them something. Peace of mind is worth the spare change.

4. Deflect partisan conversations.
Arguments about politics and religion never have a “right” answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can’t control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: “Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt.”

5. Assume people have good intentions.
Since you can’t read minds, you don’t really know the “why” behind the “what” that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people’s weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

6. Eat high quality food slowly.
Sometimes we can’t avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.
The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you’ve taken action, there’s usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off “background” TV.
Many households leave their TVs on as “background noise” while they’re doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you’ll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.
Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

Geoffrey James writes the “Sales Source” column on Inc.com, the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog, which features the best ideas from dozens of sales experts and executives, along with James’ unique take on the business world.