Happier: Post #8--Happiness at Work

Happiness at work: Yale psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski discovered that people view their work in one of three ways: as a job, career, or as a calling.  A job is motivated by money more than personal fulfillment. A career is often motivated by power and prestige—extrinsic motivators. However, a calling is motivated by intrinsic motivators like self-fulfillment and self-concordant goals. A person in a calling sees work as a privilege, not as a chore. With the Meaning-Pleasure-Strengths Process, to find a calling you need to answer three questions: What gives me meaning? What gives me pleasure? What are my strengths? If you pull together the answers to these three questions and see where they intersect, you have a great start on finding your personal calling. And when you do, watch the “flow” start to really flow! Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton experimented with hospital employees and found that regardless of the level of job, those who viewed their work as meaningful produced better results and enjoyed their work more. Shakespeare, in the character of Hamlet, said it well: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”