Happiness is a State of Mind

If you are generally happy with life, you’ll be happier at the workplace too.

The secret to happiness at work is being happy with other facets of your life, studies suggest. People who are unhappy in life are unlikely to find satisfaction in their work, a recent review of previous studies on the subject has found. The analysis examined the results of 223 studies carried out between 1967 and 2008 that investigated some combination of job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Scientists at Wright State University, US, looked at sub-dimensions of job satisfaction—which included satisfaction with the work itself, supervision, co-workers, pay and promotion—and examined the relationship between the subjects’ self-reported happiness, or ‘subjective well-being’, and overall job satisfaction. The researchers found that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are closely related. People who are generally happy and satisfied in life are more likely to be happy and satisfied in their work as well, as opposed to the other way round. The flip side could be that people who are dissatisfied generally and who seek happiness through their work may not find job satisfaction, nor might they increase their levels of overall happiness by pursuing it.