Yes! There are ways to enjoy life by enjoying your work. I have got several friends who begin getting psychologically sick on Sunday afternoon. The thought of Monday coming in a few hours gets so daunting to them. Most of them say they feel like they have not had a weekend break. They are not enjoying life by enjoying their work. It is even worse for those who work six days a week with only one day to rest.
Have you realized that you do not enjoy life in general when you hate your work? To enjoy something is to find pleasure and satisfaction from experiencing it, resulting in having a merry heart and a cheerful countenance. Therefore, your work should not be a barrier to your enjoying life.
We spend most of our “awake hours” working at some job, business, or managing a home. That is eight hours of your time—more or less—depending on your work. For the stay-at-home parent, work may seem endless!
Can you imagine living in misery all the time you are at work?
Whether you are a stay-at-home parent, work at home, or work out of the house, you must enjoy your work. There are lots of benefits to enjoying your work.
In this article, I will share how you can enjoy your life by enjoying your work. Included are thirty-five benefits.
7 Ways to Enjoy Your Life by Enjoying Your Work
1. Teach/coach others that are not as skilled as you are
Some of the happiest people love to share and are not selfish with their knowledge.
When you open your palm to give, more will come back to you because your palm is open instead of someone who keeps his palms closed. When good things come his way, they will find his palms closed and bounce off. When good things find your palms open, they will stay, and more good things will keep coming. Therefore, the more you share your knowledge, the more you will know.
One way to enjoy life by enjoying your work is by helping your team become better versions of themselves.
You could teach them how to write better emails, improve their image with good grooming, improve their communication skills to achieve better results, manage time, and even improve their other talents.
Approach those who you think could be more open to learning from you. Then, when the others in the team see the improvement in your trainees, they too will reach out for help.
If you are a solopreneur, you could teach others through your online platform.
Benefits:
- When you help others improve themselves, you will find that you are equally getting better.
- Helping others brings a sense of satisfaction that will make going to work more enjoyable and less of a burden; hence, you can enjoy your life more.
- The organization you work for will eventually become a better place because more people will be doing the right things that add value to the organization. In addition, the team could get more bonuses as a result.
- You will also get to be noticed by management, who in turn will give you higher-paying assignments. Your audience will see you in the online business world and keep coming back to you. More customers mean an increase in income for your online business.
- You get to make more friends with whom to enjoy your life’s journey and also grow your online subscribers (for those in online businesses). Teamwork usually achieves higher results than individual effort.
2. Do not forfeit your leave (vacation) days for cash
Enjoying Life by enjoying your work also includes taking your break. Some company policies allow people to take paid leave. This is a precious opportunity to relax and enjoy your life. It would be best not to waste that chance to rest.
Benefits:
- You get to rest and rejuvenate yourself. Waking up early to beat the traffic and long commute hours can take a toll on you if you do not take the necessary breaks.
- You get an opportunity to catch up on relations you couldn’t during your “busy” hours. We all need a human support system, so keep in touch with your relatives and friends.
- You get to use your free time to learn a new skill or upgrade an already existing one.
- You get the time to analyze your life with a fresh eye, looking out for areas of improvement. For example, if you realize that you are not enjoying your current work/business, find or start a more fulfilling one. If you know that you are in a toxic relationship, decide if you need to walk away, etc.
- Your absence during your leave time will help your organization realize your worth resulting in more benefits and salary increments for you in the long run. Your worth, however, will only be recognized if you have been a good worker and your absence has left a gap.
3. Celebrate your successes and achievements at work
Life moves on so fast! We rarely take the time to celebrate our achievements—both big and small. We are always rushing to the next deal or the next big thing. Enjoying life by enjoying your work is celebrating even your most minor achievement.
You can do this by keeping a record of your achievements. Keep a note on your phone, in a notebook, or any other way that works for you. Next, share your successes with family, friends, or your social networks. Finally, pamper yourself with some of life’s goodies to celebrate your achievements.
Benefits:
- You get to feel good about yourself. A merry heart is crucial for you to enjoy your life.
- It keeps you motivated, more engaged, and happy.
- You get the confidence to face new challenges.
- Celebrating your achievements, however small, increases your creativity.
- It pushes you to more achievements and eventually more significant successes when you celebrate your accomplishments.
4. Learn to appreciate your failures at work and in life
Having an attitude of learning from your mistakes rather than letting them be a source of your pain and sorrow goes a long way in helping you enjoy your life more. No one enjoys life when they are full of sorrow. Furthermore, your stress could eventually rub onto your relations, which is not good.
Take responsibility for your failures and do some soul searching on what went wrong or what you could have done differently. When you find the answer to that, you need to take the necessary actions towards improvement to avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Benefits:
- You get to develop your problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
- You get to overcome the fear of failing, so you are more open to taking risks that yield higher returns.
- You can coach or mentor others so that they avoid the actions that led to your failures.
- You can learn many other ways of doing something to achieve better results.
- Experiencing multiple failures helps you shift your focus from what you are not good at to what makes you shine. On the other hand, if you strongly believe in what you are working on, stick to it rather than move to something else. In this case, try different ways to achieve the desired result. Many successful people failed several times before they found success. The University of Kentucky put together a beautiful list of people that did not give up.
5. Learn as much as you can from your work and the business you work for
To enjoy life at work, consider your work as a learning ground and not a burden. You can learn formally through organized training sessions or informally through one-on-one sessions with a colleague. Learning new things should never end because it expands your skill set and places you in a better position for change. These skills can be valuable to you in your current work and beyond.
Benefits:
- Learning helps you enjoy your work better and increases your morale.
- You improve your performance at work because your morale is up, and you want to complete your work faster and more efficiently so you can have time to learn something new.
- It increases your chances for promotions and higher incentives. Also, your new role’s learning gap will reduce because you already started learning about the new work before you got it.
- You get to increase your list of small wins, eventually building your confidence.
- Like we saw earlier, you can use the skills you learned even after leaving that organization.
6. If employed, realize that the work could end at any time and embrace it by making profitable investments
Some people assume they will work at some organization forever or until they are due for official retirement. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. You could lose your work for one reason or another. Sometimes it may have nothing to do with what you have done and everything to do with the company’s downsizing policy. Whatever the situation, one should always be prepared.
I realize that feelings of employment insecurity can lead to anxiety and lower one’s wellbeing. Despite that, it is still essential for you to be positively aware of work loss risk. If managed well, this awareness can have several benefits before there are even rumors about it.
Benefits:
- You avoid wasting time right from the beginning. As discussed above, learn as much as you can from your work and enjoy the learning. That way, when you leave, you are in a better position than when you first started. Present yourself as a valuable resource from the onset—for quicker promotions to achieve your financial goals faster.
- Consistently save a portion of your earnings towards a particular goal. Build an emergency fund and have a budget for your expenditures. This should help you prepare and avoid the unnecessary stress that robs you of enjoying life when you are constantly worried that you could lose your job and source of income.
- You get to start a side hustle that you can do outside your work hours. This can give you a soft landing when you lose your work/job. Create as many sources of income as you possibly can.
- The realization that you could lose your work at any time helps you consider if your spouse could also find a job or start a business. In addition, if there is a second source of steady income, it may ease the fear of losing your work.
- You could consider signing up for work loss insurance if available in your region. Usually, you qualify for this while still working, and there is no prior knowledge that your job/work is about to end.
7. Enjoy the fruits of your work
It is essential to enjoy the fruits of your labor to enjoy life by enjoying your work.
Being able to enjoy your wealth and possessions is in itself a gift from God. The reverse would be for a stranger to enjoy your wealth. You leave your wealth to strangers when all you do is work full time, save everything, and invest everything without even wanting to spend a dollar on anything fun. When that time comes, others will enjoy your wealth, so why don’t you enjoy the proceeds from your work while you still can?
As you budget to build your savings, investments, and emergency fund, remember to plan for entertainment and decent luxuries according to your income. When you are away from work, enjoy your life by engaging in fun activities.
Benefits:
- When your work helps you to enjoy life, you will value it more and, in return, continue to be a valuable resource to your company. It is a win-win situation.
- Taking time to wine and dine, travel, visit relatives, etc., will significantly improve your wellbeing and increase your productivity.
- Your family and relations will also get to enjoy life with you during your breaks, making life worth living. It is refreshing to spend time around the people close to us.
- You will become a better person to be around because you will be giving off positive vibes and no stress. Everybody likes a positive person.
- When that time finally comes, you will look back with satisfaction knowing that you did not spend all your life working. You also took the time to enjoy life.
Please share this article for more people to enjoy life by enjoying their work.
