"Top 10 Ways to Be Happy at Work"

Working at Google sounds very cool. I'd be the first to tout Google as a motivating employer: free food, engineers who are enabled to spend 20 percent of their time on their own projects, and a work environment that fosters play and creative thinking. At Google, Genentech and other Fortune magazine top 100 companies, employers provide best workplaces.

At the same time, perks that enable employees to spend all of their time at work exploit people and destroy work - life balance. So, even the best employer may not be best for everyone. These are the factors that will help you find happiness at work.

1. Choose to Be Happy at Work

Happiness is largely a choice. I can hear many of you arguing with me, but it's true. You can choose to be happy at work. Sound simple? Yes. But, simplicity is often profoundly difficult to put into action. I wish all of you had the best employer in the world, but, face it, you may not. So, think positively about your work. Dwell on the aspects of your work you like. Avoid negative people and gossip. Find coworkers you like and enjoy and spend your time with them. Your choices at work largely define your experience. You can choose to be happy at work.

2. Do

Something You Love Every Single Day

You may or may not love your current job and you may or may not believe that you can find something in your current job to love, but you can. Trust me. Take a look at yourself, your skills and interests, and find something that you can enjoy doing every day. If you do something you love e very single day, your current job won't seem so bad. Of course, you can always make your current job work or decide that it is time to quit your job.

3. Take Charge of Your Own Professional and Personal Development

A young employee complained to me recently that she wanted to change jobs because her boss was not doing enough to help her develop professionally. I asked her whom she thought was the person most interested in her development. The answer, of course, was her. You are the person with th e most to gain from continuing to develop professionally. Take charge of your own growth; ask for specific and meaningful help from your boss, but march to the music of your personally developed plan and goals. You have the most to gain from growing - and the most to lose, if you stand still.

4. Take Responsibility for Knowing What Is Happening at Work

People complain to me daily that they don't receive enough communication and information about what is happening with their company, their department's projects, or their coworkers. Passive vessels, they wait for the boss to fill them up with knowledge. And, the knowledge rarely comes. Why? Because the boss is busy doing her job and she doesn't know what you don't know. Seek o ut the information you need to work effectively. Develop an information network and use it. Assertively request a weekly meeting with your boss and ask questions to learn. You are in charge of the information you receive.

5. Ask for Feedback Frequently

Have you made statements such as, "My boss never gives me any feedback, so I never know how I'm doing." Face it, you really know exactly how you're doing. Especially if you feel positively about your performance, you just want to hear him acknowledge you. If you're not positiv e about your work, think about improving and making a sincere contribution. Then, ask your boss for feedback. Tell him you'd really like to hear his assessment of your work. Talk to your customers, too; if you're serving them well, their feedback is affirming. You are responsible for your own development. Everything else you get is gravy.

6. Make Only Commitments You Can Keep

One of the most serious causes of work stress and unhappiness is failing to keep commitments. Many employees spend more time making excuses for failing to keep a commitment, and worrying about the consequences of not keeping a commitment, than they do performing the tasks pr omised. Create a system of organization and planning that enables you to assess your ability to complete a requested commitment. Don't volunteer if you don't have time. If your workload is exceeding your available time and energy, make a comprehensive plan to ask the boss for help and resources. Don't wallow in the swamp of unkept promises.

7. Avoid Negativity

Choosing to be happy at work means avoiding negative conversations, gossip, and unhappy people as much as possible. No matter how positively you feel, negative people have a profound impact on your psyche. Don't let the negative Neds and Nellies bring you down. Take a look at:

• 
  How to Deal With a Negative Coworker: Negativity Matters.
• Dealing With Difficult People at Work.

And, keep on singing in the car on your way to work - or start.

8. Practice Professional Courage

If you are like most people, you don't like conflict. And the reason why is simple. You've never been trained to participate in meaningful conflict, so you likely think of conflict as scary, harmful, and hurtful. Conflict can be all three; done well, conflict can also help you accomplish your work mission and your personal vision. Conflict can help you serve customers and create successful products. Happy people accomplish their purpose for working. Why let a little professional courage keep you from achieving your goals and dreams? Make conflict your friend.

9. Make Friends

In their landmark book, First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (Compare Prices), Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman list twelve important questions. When employees answered these questions positively, their responses were true indicators of whether people were happy and motivated at work. One of these key questions was, "Do you have a best friend at work?" Liking and enjoying your coworkers are hallmarks of a positive, happy work experience. Take time to get to know them. You might actually like and enjoy them. Your network provides support, resources, sharing, and caring.

10. If All Else Fails, Job Searching Will Make You Smile

If all of these ideas aren't making you happy at work, it's time to reevaluate your employer, your job, or your entire career. You don't want to spend your life doing work you hate in an unfriendly work environment. Most work environments don't change all that much. But unhappy employees tend to grow even more disgruntled. You can secretly smile while you spend all of your non-work time job searching. It will only be a matter of time until you can quit your job - with a big smile.

• Top Ten Reasons to Quit Your Job.
• How to Make a Potential Employer Fall in Love With You.
• Make a Plan to Re-ignite Career Passion.

Eight Steps to Aging Gracefully

"Recommendations for enhancing spiritual health and well-being."

Pay attention to your breath. Many cultures identify breath with spirit, seeing the breath cycle as the movement of spirit in the physical body.. Simply minding the breath is a way of expanding consciousness beyond the ego, of experiencing transcendence.

Connect with nature. You can do this by walking or sitting in a natural setting; a city park will do just fine. Allow yourself to slow down, drop your usual routines, and just absorb the influence of the place.

Make a list of people in your life in whose company you feel more alive, happy, and optimistic. Make an effort to spend more time with them. Our spiritual selves resonate with others, and that connection is a healing.

Bring flowers into your home and enjoy their beauty.

Listen to music that you find inspirational and uplifting.

Admire a work of art that raises your spirits: a painting, sculpture, or work of architecture.

Reach out and try to resume connection with someone from whom you are estranged; practice forgiveness.

Do some sort of service work. Give some of your time and energy to help others. The possibilities are endless but do not include just writing a check to charity.
The suggestions above are intended to help you become more aware of your spiritual self. Any activity that makes you feel more alive, more connected to others and to nature, less isolated, more comfortable with change, is beneficial. It will enhance your physical and mental health. It will help you accept the fact of your aging. It will help you to age gracefully.

Learning being alone without being lonely

If you're reading this you're probably really bored and, at the moment, have no one to be with. Whether you long for a girlfriend, or miss your family and friends, this guide can help you cope with living alone. Keep in mind that humans are indeed social animals, but that doesn't mean that we can't be perfectly happy outside of society too.


Steps

Be happy. Live a life of optimism. Happiness comes from within regardless of your situation, so don’t use any excuses, such as being alone.

Do everything you would normally do with a partner or friend. Many times it isn't the partner or friend you are missing, but the activities and hobbies you shared. Take yourself out for a date. For example, if you would have gone out to dinner or to a movie on a date, then take yourself out to a movie or to a nice restaurant. Don't hold yourself back.

Learn something new.

Learning is the most important aspect of living alone. It helps to keep the boogieman away, and also gives you something to talk about when you do have to actually enter society.

Learning is also incredibly more efficient when you don't have social responsibilities like family to take care of, or a girlfriend to entertain.

Learning isn't just exclusive to books (although they are a great source of knowledge). You can learn to do anything by just practicing. Enrolling in classes is fun and also helps with the social life - you will meet new people in your classes. If you're not so much into the meeting people, the Internet is a great way to learn pretty much everything (That's what this site's for!).

Consider learning: Indoor Activities: A Foreign Language, Painting, Yoga, Art Appreciation, A Musical Instrument such as piano or flute. Outdoor Activities: Gardening,Fencing, Tennis, Golf. Or Combination - things you can do indoors and out: Photography, Drawing.

Get a pet.

Humans need affection, without it they become bitter and hate the world around them. Pets are always a source of affection and will give loads of it endlessly.

Pets also provide someone to talk to. No, it's not weird that you talk to your pet, it's weird if you don't. Just be cautious that your pet doesn't talk back. If so, seek professional help.
If you are aloof and self-sufficient, tropical fish, hamsters, budgies or finches are great choices. If you like a little interaction, but not a lot of maintenance, try a cat. If you want to be very hands-on, spend lots of time and get lots of feedback, a dog is for you.

Read.

Now may be the time to catch up on some of your reading. Not only is it fun and enjoyable, but it's also self-education and a way to round yourself as a person.
Consider spending some time with classics such as "Moby Dick," "A Christmas Carol," "Romeo and Juliet," "The Martian Chronicles," or "Tales of Mystery and Imagination."
Or choose a genre to explore: Sci-Fi greats include "Stranger In a Strange Land," "Fahrenheit 451," and the "Dune" series. Horror: "Salem's Lot," "The Stand," and "Dracula." Fantasy: "Lord of the Rings," "Chronicles of Narnia," and "Harry Potter." Or just regular fiction: "East of Eden," "To Kill a Mockingbird," or "A Farewell to Arms."

Poetry is cool, too, and nothing makes you look cooler than when someone says, "Oh my God, you actually know that by heart?" Great poetry: "Charge of the Light Brigade," "Ulysses," "She Walks In Beauty," "How Do I Love Thee," and Shakespeare's Sonnets - #29 is great!

Join an on-line community.

One of the most popular online societies is that of World of Warcraft, but there are several on-line multi-player games that will welcome you with an abundance of online buddies.
Don't limit your online activities to just games. Join forums or chat rooms to meet new people also. Take whatever you're interested in and find other people like you.

Think. Be introspective. Contemplate or ponder things.

Above all, contemplation is one of the most important self-building things you can do. Think about what makes you you. What do you believe in? Why? Are there any things that don't seem right to you? What do you believe at face value (or accept as a matter of faith)?
Philosophy is a great way to improve your thinking and reasoning skills. It will give you interesting topics that will stretch and bend your brain to help you understand your view of reality. Keep in mind that just because someone believes in something it doesn't mean you have to if you don't like it.
Philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche

Exercise.

Now is the time to get that body you've always wanted. Instead of just pigging out on junk food and sitting in front of the TV all night, do some push-ups or sit-ups.

Rediscover the fun to be had in simple exercises. Riding a bike around your neighborhood becomes less work and more fun as you do it.

Be consistent.

Exercise takes willpower and diligence. Make a schedule and stick to it. Keep it easy at first and you will discover your limits. Or, join a gym and create new friends there.
Go outside. It's a big world out there, and you're only seeing a small fraction of it. Forget the people, just enjoy what life has to offer. Once you do that, then people will want to know and be with you. Frankly, you won't have a choice but to have friends!

Tips

Be careful of who you trust. Don't be too eager to meet someone you just met on-line. Try to always meet in a public place and it's best to bring along someone you trust.

Keep your mind as active as possible. It will help you cope with the fact that you are alone and will also help you improve yourself.

If you're going to go out, make sure your neighborhood is safe. If not go to a safer neighborhood.
Have fun, don't let the little things get to you.
Let go. Don't think about being alone, just accept it.

Warnings

If you're bored, you may be boring. You may have nothing to talk about at parties or gatherings, or may feel ill at ease contributing to other social situations, and therefore find yourself alone a lot.

By making yourself more interesting, you'll also find more things to interest you. Be careful about making a change that doesn't fit your personality. Being honest with yourself and true to your own individuality is more important.

Online communities, and especially online games such as World of Warcraft can become very addictive to some people. Learn to balance your new interest with other things that are both important and enjoyable in your life. If you find that participating in such a community or game is becoming addictive, stop immediately and reevaluate your situation.

Things You'll Need

A willing attitude
An open mind
An explorer's heart
Courage
Will
Persistence