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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
A proven five-step framework to overcome the most pressing challenges in the modern workplace
At a time when American workplaces are in crisis, Happiness Works: The Science of Thriving at Work delivers a five-step framework to address the growing challenges they face, including the complexities of hybrid/remote work, rising mental health concerns, and a pervasive sense of disconnection and disengagement. Rooted in the latest research on psychology, this book offers a view of happiness at work that goes beyond hacks, cliches, and platitudes, enabling readers to create more inclusive, engaging, and ultimately more successful team environments.
Drawing on author Jessica Weiss's 15 years of leadership, culture, and organizational development consulting experience for some of the country's most prestigious organizations including Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson, this book explores concepts including:
- Fairness, transparency, and a help-others attitude as essential requisites to happiness habits and strategies
- Positivity and resilience as tools to manage negative thoughts and emotions
- The importance of friends at work
- A new concept of a To-Do List, focusing exclusively on what you got done
- The power of savoring the moment as a strategy to rewrite neural pathways for happiness
Thought-provoking and highly practical at every turn of the page, Happiness Works earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all professionals and leaders seeking real solutions to some of the most pressing problems in the workplace today.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Work That Works
The Myth of the Dream Job
The Cost of Workplace Unhappiness
The Happiness Framework: Building from the Ground Up
Beyond Self‐Help Clichés: Real Solutions for Real People
Chapter 1: Why Aren't You Happy at Work?
The Secret Ingredient for Success
Four Reasons You're Not Happy at Work
Looking Forward to the Happiness, Works Framework
Notes
Chapter 2: What Is Happiness?
Okay, So What
Is
Happiness?
The Hierarchy of Happiness
How Do You Know If You're Happy at Work?
What to Do
Before
Pursuing Happiness at Work
How to Be Happy at Work: A Framework
Notes
Chapter 3: But How Do You Actually Make Friends at Work?
Why Having Friends at Work Matters
How to Make Friends at Work
A Future Full of Friends
The Happiness, Works Method: Friendship
Notes
Chapter 4: Unbreakable
Your Step‐by‐Step Guide
to Building Resilience
Why Building Resilience Matters (Even If You're Not in Combat)
How to Become More Resilient at Work
Building a Resilient Happiness
The Happiness, Works Method: Resilience
Notes
Chapter 5: Trust and Happiness
An Unbeatable Team Formula
Building Trust: Your Team's Secret Weapon
The Building Blocks of Trust
Leadership and the Trustworthy Team
Rebuilding Broken Trust: Understanding and Reversing the Downward Spiral
The Four Pillars of Psychological Safety
The Journey to Trust
The Happiness, Works Method: Trust and Psychological Safety
Notes
Chapter 6: The Sweet Spot of Progress
The Progress Principle
Building Momentum Toward More Progress
Handling Setbacks: Don't Get Derailed
The Happiness, Works Method: Progress
Notes
Chapter 7: Hope and a Plan
The Power of Optimism
Beyond the Motivational Poster
The Power of Optimism at Work
Practical Optimism in Action: From Classrooms to Emergency Rooms
Five Strategies for Being More Optimistic at Work
Building a Culture of Practical Optimism
The Happiness, Works Method: Optimism
Notes
Chapter 8: Putting Happiness into Action
Setback 1: You Hate Your Coworker; Now What?
Setback 2: Navigating a Toxic Work Environment?
Setback 3: Dealing with a Big Failure
Setback 4: The Low‐Trust Team
Setback 5: The Paradox of Drowning in Success
Setback 6: When You're Stuck in Career Quicksand
Setback 7: When You Don't Have a Best Friend at Work
Notes
Chapter 9: Cultivating Team Happiness
A Leader's How‐To Guide
The Secret to Friendship at Work? It's You
Building Trust from Scratch: How Real Leaders Build Unshakable Trust
Why Shining a Light on Progress Really Matters
How Enthusiasm Architects Can Unleash Your Team's Optimism
Give Your Team Maximum Autonomy (Even If It Makes You Nervous)
Transform Learning into Results: How Smart Leaders Turn Development into Dollars
Know Your Own Happiness Obstacles
Chapter 10: Yes, You Can Actually Love Your Work
The Surprising Path to Workplace Happiness
Visions of Workplace Happiness from Around the World
Happiness as Strategy: The Science of Thriving at Work
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 The hierarchy of happiness.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction Work That Works
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
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jessica weiss
happiness works
the science of thriving at work
Copyright © 2026 by John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial intelligence technologies or similar technologies.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781394329182 (Cloth)ISBN 9781394329205 (ePub)ISBN 9781394329212 (ePDF)
COVER ART & DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHY
For My Grandparents:
To Grandma Esther, whose laughter I can still hear every day
To Grandpa Aron, whose kindness taught me how a gentle heart can transform the world around it
To Grandma Hana, whose unconditional love never wavered
And to Grandpa Marcus, whose stories planted the seeds of this very book
Though you are no longer here to hold these pages in your hands, I feel your pride radiating through time. This book exists because you existed, because you believed in dreams and in me. I write these words wrapped in the warmth of your memory, knowing somewhere, Grandma is laughing in delight at what her grandchild has accomplished.
Your legacy lives on in these pages.
With eternal gratitude and love,
Jessi
Introduction Work That Works
Imagine that you are 24 minutes into a mind‐numbing conference call when you see this Post‐it Note on your colleague's cubicle wall: “Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life!”
Did you nearly choke on your coffee?
We've all been there, watching the minutes of our life tick away while Bob from accounting drones on about quarterly projections, and this cheerful yellow square is mocking us with its empty promises. If that Post‐it Note wisdom were true, why are 67 percent of Americans actively disengaged at work? Why are millions of us living for the weekend and drowning in “Sunday Scaries”?
“Follow your passion and the money will follow” belongs in the same fantasy land. Look, I've interviewed thousands of workers, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: These mantras aren't just misleading; they're downright harmful. They've created a generation of professionals who believe happiness at work is something you stumble into rather than something you build.
The Myth of the Dream Job
Let me tell you about David, a software engineer who spent seven years job‐hopping through four different tech companies. Each time, the pattern was identical: initial excitement about new challenges, followed by a honeymoon period of about six months, then the slow creep of familiar dissatisfaction.
“I kept thinking the next company would be different,” David told me during our interview. “Better culture, more inspiring mission, cooler perks. But after the fourth job change, I realized that I was bringing the same mindset, the same habits, and the same expectations to each new environment.”
David isn't alone. The “dream job fallacy” affects millions of professionals who believe their unhappiness stems from being in the wrong job rather than from how they approach their work. The problem with this is that it places the responsibility for your happiness entirely outside your control—in the hands of employers, managers, and arbitrary circumstances.
The data tells a different story. In my research spanning industries from healthcare to manufacturing to technology, I found something surprising: People with nearly identical job descriptions, working for the same companies, often reported wildly different levels of satisfaction. Some thrived while others languished, despite facing the same external conditions.
So what separated the flourishers from the flounderers? It wasn't salary, title, or even the specifics of their day‐to‐day tasks. It was their approach.
We live in a culture that's obsessed with defining people by their jobs. Think about it—what's the first question you hear at a party? “So … what do you do for a living?” As if that single answer will tell you everything worth knowing about a person. This isn't just smalltalk; it reflects American society's deep‐rooted belief that our work should be our identity, our purpose, and our passion all rolled into one.
But here's the truth I've discovered after 15 years of research: Being happy at work has surprisingly little to do with “following your passion.” It's much more nuanced than that—and thankfully much more within your control than you might think. The path to workplace happiness isn't about finding the perfect job; it's about developing the right skills to thrive in the job you have.
The Cost of Workplace Unhappiness
Before we dive into solutions, let's acknowledge what's at stake. Workplace unhappiness isn't just a minor inconvenience—it exacts a tremendous toll on our lives.
The average American spends roughly 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. That's about a third of your waking existence. When you're unhappy at work, that unhappiness doesn't stay neatly contained within office hours. It seeps into your relationships, your health, and your overall sense of well‐being.
Studies have linked workplace dissatisfaction to everything from increased risk of heart disease and depression to shortened lifespan. The stress hormones released during a miserable Monday don't magically disappear when you clock out. They continue circulating, affecting your sleep, your immune system, and even your cognitive function.
Then there's the opportunity cost—all the moments of potential joy, creativity, and fulfillment that never materialize because you're just trying to survive until Friday. The family dinners where you're physically present but mentally still replaying that contentious meeting. The hobbies you abandon because you're too emotionally drained to engage with them.
This isn't just philosophical—it's practical. When we resign ourselves to workplace unhappiness, we're making a devastating trade: sacrificing our present well‐being for a future that may never arrive in the form we imagine.
The Happiness Framework: Building from the Ground Up
This book isn't about magic formulas or quick fixes. What I offer instead is something more valuable: a proven framework that builds the foundations of genuine workplace satisfaction from the ground up.
The secret I've discovered after years of research is that happiness isn't a threshold that you cross where everything changes. It emerges naturally when you develop traits like efficacy, resilience, optimism, and empathy. These qualities don't just make work bearable—they make it meaningful and fulfilling.
When you cultivate these habits, you start recognizing happiness when it appears in your day. You stop missing those moments of joy that once passed you by unnoticed. The goal isn't constant contentment—that's not realistic or desirable.
With the right perspective, even a routine meeting can become an opportunity for connection. A challenging project transforms into a chance for growth. A setback becomes a valuable lesson that propels you forward. These are fundamental shifts in how you experience your work life.
Beyond Self‐Help Clichés: Real Solutions for Real People
This framework isn't about morning meditation routines or keeping a gratitude journal at your desk (though if those work for you, fantastic). I won't suggest that scented candles or desktop plants will solve structural problems in your workplace. What I offer instead are evidence‐based strategies that address the root causes of workplace unhappiness.
My framework focuses on five core areas that research consistently shows are essential to workplace satisfaction. For each area, I'll offer many practical approaches so you can choose what works best for your unique situation. Some will be small adjustments you can implement immediately; others will be more substantial changes that require time and practice. All of them have been proven effective across industries, roles, and personality types.
Throughout the book, you'll meet people from all walks of life who have transformed their experience at work, without changing jobs—people like Maria, a senior policy analyst at a large insurance company.
When I met her, Maria told me she used to really enjoy her job, but she hadn't felt that way in a while. A number of things had changed.
Her best friend at work left for another job—leaving a void in Maria's days that she hadn't been able to fill. Her last two big projects had fizzled, making her start to doubt her own abilities. A new management team had told her to “go back to the drawing board” and she wasn't sure what was expected of her anymore. People on her team were becoming defensive and starting to play the “blame game” with each other.
She was feeling anxious and trapped. She had lost all of her happiness at work. She no longer felt that satisfaction or contentment. She didn't know how to get her happiness back. But she ultimately did.
Stories like these will show you that happiness at work isn't reserved for the lucky few who stumble into dream careers. It's available to anyone willing to approach their work with intention and purpose.
If you've ever felt that creeping dread on Sunday evenings or wondered if there's more to work than just surviving until retirement, this book is for you. Consider it the conversation I wish someone had started with me years ago—an invitation to think differently about happiness at work.
Not as an unattainable ideal reserved for a select few, but as a practical, achievable reality that we can create together, one day at a time.
Are you ready to take control of your happiness at work? Let's begin.
Chapter 1Why Aren't You Happy at Work?
Are you happy at work?
Imagine this. You are sitting in a room full of people, all neatly dressed and looking successful, coffee cups in hand. I stand before them and ask one simple question: “Are you happy at work?”
The silence is deafening. Awkward glances bounce around the room. A few nervous laughs break the tension.
I've posed this question to thousands of people across industries, job titles, and salaries. The result? A sea of hesitation, with only rare islands of genuine enthusiasm.
Why?
What invisible force has turned our workplaces—where we spend a third of our adult lives—into zones of quiet desperation? Why do Monday mornings trigger dread rather than excitement? Why do so many of us count down to Friday while wishing away precious hours of our finite existence?
This isn't just about job satisfaction. It's about a profound disconnect between what work could be and what it has become.
What's interesting is that this is not a new problem: People have been complaining about their jobs for as long as people have had jobs to go to (Aristotle was asking what it was all for more than two thousand years ago). In 1962, researchers conducted a survey that asked Americans: “What is the formula for success?” Six percent of people cited meaningful work as being part of the formula.1
They conducted the exact same survey 20 years later and they found that 49 percent of people believed that meaningful work was part of success. Today 90 percent of Americans would take a pay cut just to find a bit more happiness at work.2
Sure, the COVID pandemic is part of that story, but the data shows that reasons for unhappiness run much deeper. In 2021, 47 million Americans quit their job.3 Years later, while quit rates have begun to normalize (although still historically high), 46 percent of people are thinking about quitting their jobs. That's more people than the 40 percent who said this in 2021.4
And then there's “quiet quitting” or “career cushioning” (that's preparing for a job change while you're still employed), when the “Great Resignation” transitioned into the “Great Renegotiation.” (Memo to the media: Is any of this really “great”?) While the data is harder to come by on this trend, it's clear that many people are focusing on the quality of their jobs.
The reality of the pandemic is that it gave us time to pause and reflect, often for the first time in a long time. People are thinking more about what they want from work. It was a moment of reckoning, and suddenly, having a fancy job title doesn't seem all that important to many of us.
What people want instead is satisfaction and contentment from their work.
In some ways, it's a simple story: Forced to face our mortality, many of us decided to no longer accept the status quo. While people used to think of being unhappy at work as “normal,” a lot of us now believe that we deserve better. That we deserve to be happy at work.
This is a moment for every organization to listen, to adapt, to change, and to improve. Companies must take the time to understand why employees are leaving. The pandemic showed us that we all want a more human place to work. We want our employers to take into account our mental health, our physical health, and our overall well‐being. Organizations that do this well—and act thoughtfully—will have an edge in attracting and retaining talent.
Here's the good news: It's more possible than you think. For many decades now, people have been studying how to make work more satisfying and we have real science‐backed insights and tools that are proven to work. Yes, proven to work.
By building up specific habits, tools, and strategies, I will show you how we can get better at being happy at work. And guess what? It's not that complicated and it's not that hard. We'll be spending most of the book diving into these insights, learning the tactical things that have been scientifically shown to make a real difference.
The Secret Ingredient for Success
Curious about something even more encouraging? Many still view happiness as a luxury rather than a necessity, prioritizing salary over satisfaction. What they don't recognize is that workplace happiness is precisely what leads to greater financial rewards. In fact, happiness isn't just beneficial—it's the fundamental element that determines your success.
In fact, happiness is the secret ingredient for success. I believe that when people are happy at work, they will go on to achieve extraordinary things for the companies that they work for. I believe business has the capacity to create a more equitable and happier world.
Happiness is a serious tool for business. The happier your employees, the happier your customers, the more successful your business will be. And the truth is that there is a lot of evidence now that says the most successful organizations, the ones with a happy and engaged work force, are more profitable and more productive, with fewer sick days and lower turnover. If you care about your people and what makes them happy at work, your customers and clients will get better service and you will have a more successful business.
It's true. Study after study has shown this.
A Gallup meta‐analysis of 3.3 million employees in 112 countries found that happy teams were 18 percent more productive and had 81 percent less absenteeism.5 A Harvard study showed that happy employees produced 37 percent higher sales and were three times more creative.6 A study of 25 years of stock market data showed that companies with high employee satisfaction outperformed their peers by 3.7 percent annually—in other words, those companies that valued satisfaction and happiness at work produced double the value of the unhappy ones over that time period.7
These studies are all showing the same thing: It's not that success makes people happy, but that happiness makes them successful. Their happiness creates the conditions for achievement, advancement, and fulfillment.
How do we know this? To start, we can look at the characteristics of those people who love their work and see how those characteristics make them successful. Take just a few examples:
Better cognitive performance:
Having a positive mindset makes it easier for us to think and focus. Happy people show improved memory and decision‐making, which leads to better problem‐solving abilities.
Increased resilience:
Happy employees are more likely to persist when facing a challenge, which means that they bounce back from setbacks faster than other people. This makes them better able to withstand tough situations.
Stronger relationships:
Happy people are well‐liked by their peers. This makes them better at building and maintaining professional networks, and more likely to receive mentorship and support.
More ambition:
Happy people tend to be more motivated and set higher goals for themselves. This often leads to more positive evaluations, more frequent promotions, and a higher chance of being picked for leadership roles.
I'm sure we'd all like to experience these benefits, whether they make us happier or not. (Fortunately, they do.) The important message is that happiness is not a fluke. It is within your control. The goal of this book is to give you, and your team, the tools to take control of your own happiness and become more successful in your career.
Four Reasons You're Not Happy at Work
You're probably asking yourself: If we know that being happy will make us more successful, why aren't more of us doing it? Why does it feel so difficult? What's the problem here?
I've spent the last 15 years listening to people tell me why they are unhappy in their jobs and studying the people who are happy and successful. At first, I was part of a large management consulting firm that would go into major corporations and work with teams to remove barriers to their success. Before long, fascinated by what I was hearing, I launched my own consultancy focused specifically on employee and team happiness. I did extensive interviews and sent out detailed surveys to dig into what triggered and prevented people from being happy at work. At the same time, I was coaching individuals on how to be happier in their careers, listening to their complaints and building concrete action plans that saw them become both happier and more successful over time.
I'll share some of these stories throughout the book. But what I saw over and over again is that people are doing the wrong things to be happy.
There's a lot of conventional wisdom around career success and happiness that is just plain wrong. This often leads people to pursue things that do not improve their happiness, or have even been proven to negatively affect it. Other times, people decide that happiness is not in their control and they resign themselves to suffering without even trying to change.
That's why, before we get into the concrete steps you can take to make you and your teams happier at work, I want to debunk some of the common myths that people pursue. By showing why these strategies do not lead to happiness, I want you to remove some of the common obstacles that can get in your way and eliminate the behaviors that are making you less happy.
Myth 1: More Money Will Make You Happier
We've all been told some version of this from a very young age:
Go to school. Study hard. Get a good job. Climb the ladder. Make a bunch of money. And THEN you will be happy.
And hey, there's some truth to it. You do need to make a certain amount of money to feel safe and secure. It's hard to be happy if you can't pay your bills. But the amount of money you need is probably less than you think.
The problem with tying your happiness to the size of your paycheck is that you're relying on an external source of motivation. And external things are not in our control.
So what should you pursue instead of money? The short answer is that you need to look for things that bring you lasting happiness. You need to be paying attention to internal motivations.
What the Research Says
When you get a raise or promotion at work, you do get happier—for a little while. Research shows that you get a happiness “bump” that will last for … maybe six months (if you're lucky). When the anticipated event does happen, you get a little boost of dopamine and serotonin.8
Then you pretty quickly go back to your baseline, and start looking for something to bring the happiness back. The goal posts move and you decide that something else (a bigger raise or spending that new money) is needed to feel happy. This is why a lot of people fall into the trap of climbing the corporate ladder, thinking that higher rungs will unlock a new level of happiness. As you get higher up, these dopamine bumps become further and further apart and eventually you run into a ceiling. There's nothing wrong with going after a promotion, but it's not the only key to happiness.
Even worse, the act of seeking an external reward will make you less happy. A fascinating study of a kindergarten class shows why.
Researchers recruited kids who already loved to draw and divided them into three groups:
Group 1 was promised a “good player award” for drawing.
Group 2 was given a surprise award after drawing.
In group 3, no award was mentioned or given.
Two weeks later, the results were revealing. While groups 2 and 3 continued drawing at their usual rate, the first group (those promised rewards) showed significantly less interest in drawing. The external reward had actually diminished their natural love for drawing.9
Why am I telling you about children? Children are completely untainted. They haven't been influenced by all the “shoulds” and rules. They are pure little humans who can tell us so much about ourselves.
Similar studies with adults consistently show that when we rely solely on external motivators (raises, promotions, recognition), we risk depleting our internal drive—our sustainable source of motivation.
The irony is that the short‐term happiness bump we get after a raise has little to do with the money itself. When you're starting out, the money is making you less unhappy by doing away with problems. Then, as you reach a “fair” salary, it's actually the recognition that affects happiness more than pay.10
What You Can Do
Despite the mountain of evidence that external validation doesn't work, it's hard to go against a story we've been told since childhood. If you live in the United States, you know that “What do you do?” is often the first question people ask each other when they meet. We're conditioned to believe that a good job leads to happiness. That's why I've had countless conversations with people who've worked hard for years to accomplish a goal, like a new job with a bigger paycheck—and a month later they're telling me, “Jessica, I hate this job. I want to quit. I need a new job.”
It's not that making more money is a bad thing. It's just the wrong goal. By focusing on one thing (money) that you have limited control over, you're ignoring all the other proven things you could be doing to make yourself happier.
Instead, focus on internal motivators as a more dependable source of happiness. Intrinsic motivators don't just make people perform better; they also make work more fulfilling. Think about wanting to read a book and having to read a book—one of those is a lot easier. (And more fun, right?)
We need to look for opportunities to bring intrinsic motivation into our jobs. This means reflecting on what motivates you and asking your teammates what motivates them. It means connecting with your “why”—why, beyond the money, have you chosen to do the work that you do? (We'll talk more about this in Chapter 6.)
If you're a leader, it means creating an environment where intrinsic motivation can flourish. We'll talk more about how to do this in Chapter 9.
Myth 2: Happiness Is a Choice
One of the things that drives me crazy is when people say that they'll just “choose to be happy.”
Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Happiness is not a light switch.
If you think about it for a minute, happiness can't be as easy as “deciding” it will happen. If that were true, why wouldn't we all just choose to be happy all the time? You can trick yourself into putting on a happy face for a short time, but it's not a recipe for lasting happiness.
Still, it's not hard to see why people like this idea. It's easy. It gives you the illusion of control. It doesn't take any work. Of course, that's exactly why it's wrong.
The feeling you get from “deciding to be happy” is ephemeral. It doesn't last because it's not built on a solid foundation. It tends to disappear at the first sign of trouble, because it doesn't have the strength to withstand ill winds.
So why do people say this? The problem comes from not understanding what happiness really means. It's not a fleeting feeling that comes and goes; it's something deeper. It's something you build up over time, by practicing the right habits, so that your happiness becomes sustainable, long‐lasting, and hard to blow away.
What the Research Says
Decades worth of research shows, over and over, that you cannot simply will yourself to happiness. It can even tell us why.
You may have heard of a “negativity bias.” This is the tendency, of the vast majority of people, to respond more to negative things than to positive. It's the reason you remember insults more than compliments, are more hurt by traumas than helped by triumphs, and are more motivated by avoiding pain than seeking gain.
This bias serves an important purpose. Thousands of years ago, noticing bad things quickly was an important survival mechanism. When one wrong move means that you could end up as some animal's dinner, you want to detect danger as soon as possible. This instinct protects you. The people who had this instinct survived more often than those who didn't. Fast forward a few thousand years and evolution has given us a finely tuned radar for paying attention to things that may go wrong.
Unfortunately, this works against us today. The genes of all those hawk‐eyed survivors passed down a sensitivity to negativity that's no longer so helpful in the modern world.
The implications of this can be a little hard to swallow. It means that we are not wired for happiness. In some ways, we're wired for the opposite.
What You Can Do
Fortunately, another characteristic of our brains can come to the rescue here: neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is the ability of our brains to change over time. Literally, they can be rewired to learn new behaviors. This means that you can do concrete things to overcome that negativity bias and start to rewire your brain for happiness.
While you can't simply will yourself to long‐lasting happiness, you can learn how to cultivate positive emotions.
In 2004, the psychologist Barbara Fredrickson published what became known as the “broaden and build” theory of happiness. In a nutshell, it states that creating positive emotions can broaden how we respond to events (for example, stop us from jumping to a negative conclusion), which helps us build resilience and cope with negative emotions. By making it easier to call up positive emotions, it makes those feelings more available alongside the negative feelings we experience when faced with a difficult situation.11
Essentially, Fredrickson is suggesting that we add small doses of positive energy throughout our day. I call this practical optimism. The purpose is to develop a positive mindset that can withstand the negative emotions that we inevitably experience. It's giving our brain a few well‐worn positive circuits that can fire as easily as the negative ones we're wired for.
Here's a few examples of what I mean by positive emotions you can cultivate:
Interest:
Develop a sense of curiosity about other people's work. This can help you learn new things and help others by offering them feedback.
Inspiration:
Inspiration is the highway to innovation. By putting in the effort to seek out inspiration, you'll find new solutions to problems.
Gratitude:
Celebrate your wins and don't take the help of others for granted.
Pride:
Give yourself credit for work well done.
Giving yourself permission to feel these emotions, and even seeking them out, is a choice you can make that will lead you to sustainable happiness. (We'll spend Chapter 7 looking at ways to boost your practical optimism.)
Myth 3: Working Less Will Make You Happier
“I would be happier if I could just work less.”
You know the fantasy: A pile of money lands in your lap, you move to a tropical island, and life is bliss. No one expects to achieve this dream, but it speaks to a belief that more leisure (a lot more) equals more happiness.
It's true that in the United States we work more hours than people do in many other rich countries. And as we'll see, some of those places where they work a few hours a week less than Americans do rank higher for happiness. But that's just part of the story.
It's what you do with that extra time that matters. So pursuing more time off or a sabbatical (or even a four‐day work week) may make you happier—if you use that time doing the things that are proven to help you build happiness.
Also, surprisingly, there is such a thing as too much time off. There's a sweet spot for the ideal amount of free time, and the data shows that too much time off can be just as bad for your happiness as not enough. So hold off buying property on that tropical island.
What the Research Says
Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and the author of the book Happier Hour. What her research found is that there's a Goldilocks zone for how much free time helps you to be happier. If you have this amount of free time on a daily basis, you have achieved what she calls “time affluence.”
What is this perfect amount of time richness? Two to five hours a day.
I know even two hours a day of free time sounds like a lot. If you don't have it, you will probably feel stressed. So if you have a challenging job and a busy home life, finding more time in the day will help you. It's good to keep in mind, however, that this doesn't need to be two continuous hours—if you can find half an hour in the morning, another half hour in the afternoon, and an hour in the evening, that works.
Interestingly, too much free time was just as bad as too little. If you don't have much to show for how you spent your day, you'll lack a sense of purpose and feel dissatisfied. We are meant to be productive.
What You Can Do
Rather than dreaming of a tropical paradise, take control of your day. Use time as a way to build happiness:
Protect your time for those things that feel worthwhile to you.
Really enjoy, savor, and make the most of the activities that you love.
Make time for the work that matters and find time to do that every day.
What you do in those two to five hours matters. Instead of focusing on the time you don't have, aim to spend the time you do have more strategically.
