Love What You Do: 4 Things That Will Make You Happier at Work

Wrzesniewski and Dutton followed a group of hospital cleaners, and found that some of the cleaners experienced their work as a job — as something they did solely for the paycheck — and described it as boring and meaningless. But another group perceived the same work as a calling — and experienced the hours they spent at work as engaging and meaningful. This second group of hospital cleaners did things differently from the first group. They engaged in more interactions with nurses, patients, and visitors, taking it upon themselves to make everyone they came in contact with feel better. Generally, they saw their work in its broader context: They were not merely cleaning the wards and removing the trash, but were contributing to the health of patients and the smooth functioning of the hospital.

When callers interacted with one scholarship recipient in person, they were even more energized. The average caller doubled in calls per hour and minutes on the phone per week. By working harder the callers reached more alumni, resulting in 144 percent more alumni donating each week. Even more strikingly, revenue quintupled: callers averaged $412 before meeting the scholarship recipient and more than $2000 afterward.

Americans also gain a boost in positive emotions the more they use their strengths. The more hours per day adults believe they use their strengths, the more likely they are to report having ample energy, feeling well-rested, being happy, smiling or laughing a lot, learning something interesting, and being treated with respect.

The more signature strengths were applied at the workplace, the higher the positive experiences at work. This study showed that character strengths matter in vocational environments irrespective of their content.

When 577 volunteers were encouraged to pick one of their signature strengths and use it in a new way each day for a week, they became significantly happier and less depressed than control groups. And these benefits lasted: Even after the experiment was over, their levels of happiness remained heightened a full month later.

So this is a great example of something that is irrational but wonderful. And what we’ve basically found is that the moment that you invest something of yourself into something, you start overvaluing it. My personal experience started with IKEA furniture which is the reason that we call it the IKEA effect. But what happened was I’m not particularly good in assembling things and it took me a long time. I made all kinds of mistakes. But I found out that when I finished assembling this truly mediocre piece of furniture, I was actually incredibly proud of it and I kept moving it with me from city-to-city as I would keep on moving, while the objective quality of it did not support that.

And I think this is because kids are an ideal example of the IKEA effect…But the realization I think is we love them so much because they’re our kids. We think that IKEA furniture comes with better instructions. Kids really come with no instructions. Very tough to deal with, difficult, complex, but incredibly involving and time consuming and I think the love that comes out of it is an example of the effect of a tremendous investment.