The Science of Happiness at Work
Happiness Encyclopedia XIV from the Happiness PhD Project...
“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.” – Hunter S. Thompson
What leads to happiness at work?
This is a big question to unpack, and it overlaps significantly with the psychology section covered before – particularly the part on meaning and achievement. Further, the relationships section we’ve covered applies duly to your work life. But given work plays such a prominent role in modern life, I wanted to share a model that applies specifically to the workplace.
“Follow your passion” is probably bad advice. I first read this in the work of computer science professor turned productivity expert Cal Newport. He makes his case through the lens of Steve Jobs. You probably think Steve was passionate about technology and innovation. But his early life suggests this was not necessarily the case. He studied dance and history at a liberal arts college and bummed around studying Eastern mysticism. In the end, he tried to make a couple thousand bucks flipping switchboards as a side hustle. Thus, he stumbled upon the opportunity to start a company based on the idea that computers would become household appliances. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Cal’s research into what passionate people do for a living suggests this is more common. One begins seeking and learning by doing (as opposed to identifying one’s passion in the abstract) and eventually develops a valuable skill. This skill is then used as leverage to create ideal circumstances.
The problem with passion is illustrated by a survey given by psychologist Robert Vallerand to 549 Canadian college students in 2002. Many didn’t have a clear “passion,” and only 4% of them had a passion that related to a career field. The number one passion in the group was hockey. Planning to become an NHL player is not a great career plan.
So, I – and Cal Newport – suggest a better approach is identifying ideal circumstances for happy-making work and doing what you can to develop your skillset and align your profession with that.
Likely the most established construct of job satisfaction is Self-Determination Theory (SDT).
SDT is about autonomy, competency, and relatedness. This means having flexibility and ownership over your work and success, the capacity to make an impact and experience growth, and feeling trust and connection to those you serve in your work.
So, perhaps Cal’s advice is astute for most of us: don’t follow your passion. Become “so good they can’t ignore you,” and use that “career capital” to create a work life that has ideal circumstances.
Before I totally throw away the “follow your bliss” mentality, though, I’ll share a slightly more nuanced perspective. If you have a passion that is economically viable, then by all means pursue it. If you have that calling but it is not economically viable, then embrace a career that maximizes your free time so you can do more of that thing.
Otherwise, consider trying to maximize the circumstances above: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Instead of thinking, “How much money can I make?” think, “What is the path with the most autonomy, competence, and relatedness that I can take to get the amount of money I need?”
One of my favorite career stories is a healthcare consultant who, every time he was due for a raise, just asked for the same percent reduced hours (e.g., instead of a 10% raise, how about 10% fewer hours). He now makes a good chunk of coin working remotely 3–4 hours per day on specialized internal projects that he finds interesting. See what he did there? He traded money for autonomy (more free time), competence (choosing his specialization of interest), and relatedness (working with an internal team instead of new clients every month).
Another example is a friend of a friend who loves to write poetry. He could have slogged along trying to become a full-time professional poet in 2025 (a feat that is, I assume, impossible). Or he could have sold out and given it up. Instead, he works as a high-level freelance corporate lawyer part-time and spends about 15-20 hours per week writing poems on his own terms.
So, consider grounding your big career decisions using the SDT scorecard…
Will this work arrangement afford me freedom and flexibility? Will I get ownership over results as opposed to being micromanaged? Give it a 1 to 10 for Autonomy.
Will this work arrangement align with what I’m good at and lead to tangible impact? Will I grow and develop in it? Give it a 1 to 10 for Competence.
Will this work arrangement involve people who are trusting, caring, and social? Will I feel I am of service? Give it a 1 to 10 for Relatedness.
Will this work arrangement give me the compensation and benefits I desire? Give it a 1 to 10 for compensation.
(Add any other factors you want to score.)
Aim for jobs that are above a 28, and try to continuously make that number go up. Then, for example, once you get really high up on, say, two of the categories – you have great friends at work and they pay you a ton – you can start to focus on the other variables. Could you work from home two days per week for more autonomy? Could you jump into a new functional area that would allow you to grow and have more of an impact? And so on.
Of course, navigating your working life will be much messier than this. But at least you have a frame of reference now. And if you don’t have the means to approach your career or work from this orientation, then consider job crafting.
This is not my concept; there’s some really excellent research on this, particularly from the University of Michigan. (1)
You can, with or without the direction of management, craft or tailor your job to better align with your interests and design your job to support your own flourishing.
This is where you can take SDT and weave it into your work. Job crafting empowers you to proactively adjust your tasks, relationships, and perceptions of work to better align with your personal strengths, values, and interests. Research shows this self-initiated customization leads to significant increases in engagement, job satisfaction, resilience, and overall well-being. Field experiments – such as tech-company workshops – demonstrate that those who engage in job crafting are rated by peers and managers as notably happier and more effective.
An important caveat here – there are limits. If I’m working in data entry, I can’t suddenly say I’m going to stop taking orders and go try to figure something out in the warehouse. You certainly can have those conversations, but job crafting is more subtle.
There are three subcategories of job crafting:
1. Task crafting
2. Relational crafting
3. Cognitive crafting
Task crafting is about identifying certain tasks that you can do more of or less of – within reason – that support your skills and interests. For example, if you’re on a marketing team and part of your role includes both event planning and writing email campaigns, and you love writing, you might ask to do more of that and less of the event planning.
Relational crafting is about changing how you relate to people. If you enjoy mentorship, maybe you take on more of a mentor role. If you like educating people and you’re in customer service, maybe you shift how you interact with clients – moving from just providing service to actually teaching them how to get more value out of your product. You’re still meeting your responsibilities, but you’re framing them in a way that’s more meaningful to you.
Cognitive crafting is about shifting how you mentally relate to your work. For example, my business partner Paul had a client at a pulp and paper manufacturer. Their product was this gross, white, papery substance. But it turned out that substance was used in diapers and medical devices. So, they ran an internal campaign showing the end users – babies and patients – and helped the employees see the purpose behind their work. That’s cognitive crafting: reframing your mindset about what you do and why it matters.
By sitting down with (or without) your manager and starting to think about how you can craft your tasks, relationships, and cognitive perspective on work, you can try to cultivate more competence, relatedness, and autonomy in your working life.
Imagine you’re a truck driver – this is probably the hardest possible job to craft given it is highly regulated and pretty monotonous. But let’s say you decide to get more relatedness, feel more competent, and have more flexibility. Maybe you offer to help with training new drivers as a way to get more social time; in doing this, you also get to choose when you drive solo or with a new driver, which increases your autonomy; and you do some cognitive crafting to reframe your work from driving to helping mentor someone.
This process is not like simply flipping a switch to get your dream job – but it makes a difference. Use job crafting (cognitive, relational, and task) to tailor your job to increase your satisfaction. And pursue the circumstances – relatedness, competence, and autonomy – that make for more happiness at work.
Berg, J. M., Dutton, J. E., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2008). What is Job Crafting and Why Does It Matter? Center for Positive Organizations, University of Michigan.
