The song made Bobby McFerrin famous worldwide, but it also sparked a new attitude to life for many Babyboomers striving to enjoy life while carving out a career.
Now the “happiness” message is back with experts claiming it is the key to success in the 21st century.
While many people believe that career success will result in happiness and that having strong ambitions in our careers leads to fulfillment, psychological studies have shown that workers may have this the wrong way around.
Insights from the author of “The Happiness Advantage” Shawn Achor argue that while we may think success will bring us happiness, the lab-verified reality is that happiness brings us more success.
Recruitment expert Ineke McMahon said basing career satisfaction on ambition and status purely for the sake of it might work for some, but it had been proven that happiness in the workplace was a key component to career progression and career longevity.
“Happiness and deriving meaning from our professional and personal actions has significant positive effects on our productivity and motivation,” Ms McMahon said.
“The importance of meaningfulness in driving job selection has grown steadily, particularly for Millennials, who are searching for jobs that offer a sense of meaning and provide work life balance, not just a pay-check.
"It can be easy to see your career has a number of checkboxes according to various levels of aspiration, but this approach to the workplace can result in burn-out and ultimately a lack of direction because there isn’t any room left for finding meaning or happiness.
“There is nothing wrong with having ambition, it’s a key step in obtaining goals, but it’s the reasons behind that ambition that are so important.
“More and more workers, particularly younger workers, are realising that work-life balance and happiness are just as important, if not more important than that next promotion.”
A study by the Harvard Business Review has shown that inspired employees are almost three times more productive than dissatisfied employees.
“Annually evaluating your own decision making matrix and figuring out what’s important to you is a form of career self-care, because it can be easy to fall prey to our human programming that suggests – ‘when I get that promotion’, ‘when I lose weight’, ‘when I marry that person’ then I will be happy,” Ms McMahon said.
“Happiness and career progression are not mutually exclusive. When we look for work that sparks happiness, whether we desire work that is stimulating, benefits communities or centres around creative thinking, the outflowing benefits occur in more than just our professional lives.
“This isn’t something that has to be done alone. Finding training and support that can help you better understand your career goals is a great first step.
“I’ve developed a tailored 8-week course, Path to Promotion, which focuses on seeking clarity within
our professions and helping arm the workforce for the future.”
our professions and helping arm the workforce for the future.”
For more information on Path to Promotion, visit:
