It’s Monday, you’re showing up for work unhappy, and yet you continue to do this year after year. You blame adulting, blah blah blah. Let me get you out of your misery- you’re trapped.
Shan works at an audit firm. She’s smart and hardworking and has risen through the ranks by following the rules. She makes a lot of money, is married to a man she loves, and is devoted to her children. She has everything she thought she wanted, but she isn’t happy. Things are tense at home, and work no longer gratifies her. She is tired of workplace politics and cynical about the never-ending changes that would supposedly fix whatever was wrong with the company in a given quarter. She resents the long hours she was required to put in. Striving is a habit.
Shan blames others for her disenchantment. She believes that the management team is disconnected from the day-to-day business. She complains to friends and coworkers about management’s bad decisions, the company’s strategy, and what she perceives as a lack of vision on the part of senior leadership. All the members of her team seemed to be slacking.
After coaching Shan for several months, I am convinced she is a good person. But I found her complaints tedious. Every time I challenge her to take responsibility she says, “I know I can probably make things better. I’m just so busy. Besides, it doesn’t matter whether I’m happy or not. What matters is that I hit my targets.” In her more reflective moments, Sha admits to being stressed and unhappy.
Why are so many of us who can shape our professional lives unhappy at work? And what can we do about it?
We often fall into destructive mindsets and ways of working that make us unsatisfied and ultimately less successful. Some of the most common of these “happiness traps”
The Ambition Trap: The drive to achieve goals and further our careers pushes us to be and do our best. But when ambition is coupled with hyper competitiveness and a single-minded focus on winning, we get into trouble. We become blind to the impact of our actions on ourselves and others; relationships are damaged and collaboration suffers; we start chasing goals for the sake of hitting targets; and work begins to lose its meaning. Shan’s ambition had turned into a trap instead of an asset. Her ruthlessness was a learned behavior rather than an inherent quality: Success early on had reinforced a winner-take-all attitude that ultimately derailed her both professionally and personally.
The “Should” Trap: Doing what we think we should do rather than what we want to do is a trap that all of us risk falling into at some point in our work lives. True, some of the unwritten rules that shape our careers are positive, such as completing an education so that we can help our families and observing punctuality and civility at work. But too many of our workplace norms—what I call shoulds —force us to deny who we are and to make choices that hinder our potential and stifle our dreams.
Avoiding the should trap isn’t about completely ignoring the rules, of course. Absolute nonconformity and cultural deviance would challenge even the most inclusive organization. Instead, we need to recognize which rules end up being harmful. Self-suppression and diligent conformity don’t bring out our most original, creative contributions at work; nor do they lead to workplace happiness, a key ingredient of sustained professional success.
The Overwork Trap: Overwork is seductive because it is still lauded in so many workplaces. It’s no longer how long you work but how effectively you work. Finding happiness at work begins with honing your emotional intelligence to grasp which trap has ensnared you. Then you can foster three things that are known to increase professional satisfaction: meaningful work, enduring hope, and workplace friendships.
