Welcome to your Happiness Kit
This kit will help you prepare your workplace or home for a Happy year ahead. Use these simple tips and activities to inspire your team to choose to live a happier, more purposeful life.
This Happiness Kit contains our favourite activities, tips, research, and ideas bundled up into one easy-to-implement document. We believe that everyone has the right to be happy at work and in life.
Use this mini guide to create happiness within your workplace. Be the ambassador of bringing a lighthearted approach to daily stresses, challenges and brighten up each day not only for yourself but for others around you.
Attitude It’s Your Choice #choosehappy
When we wake up each day, we can choose how we decide what kind of day we want to have. It is almost like getting dressed in the morning. Some clothes fit or look better than others. If you wear a uniform when going to work, also consider that your attitude is an essential part of your uniform.
You set the tone of your workplace or home. Once you understand that your attitude is contagious, you can decide whether you want to have an attitude that people want to catch or avoid.
No matter what happens to you throughout the day, you can always choose your response. The crucial thing is to be aware that you are choosing.
One of the challenges of Choosing Your Attitude is that there is no such thing as the ‘correct’ attitude. There are times when it’s appropriate to be angry or frustrated or even sad. The key is to be aware that your choice affects everyone around you.
Once you are aware of your impact, you can ask yourself the following:
- Is my attitude having an impact on the people in my life? Is it a positive one or a negative one?
- Is my attitude helping me reach my goals?
- Is my attitude helping me to be the person I want to be?
The only thing any of us really control in this world is our choices. When you take responsibility for how you respond to what life throws in your path, you gain tremendous personal power. You control your attitude, not the other way around.
If you want to share this life skill with your people, why not introduce a Giant Attitude Graph on a wall close to the entrance of your environment. This can also be done remotely; you can create a virtual Attitude graph and invite your people to get involved.
GIANT ATTITUDE GRAPH
Write your name above the attitude that best describes you right at this moment.
- Exhausted
- Focused
- Collaborative
- Happy
- Enthusiastic
Feel free to be creative and create your own fun attitudes that people can identify with. Be there to greet your team and encourage them to get involved. You can also add some fun, upbeat music and create a bit of an entrance theme that helps to lift the spirits or set the scene for the day. Maybe nominate someone to be the Chief of Attitudes each day, and they can create their own set of fun attitudes.
Live In The Moment #bepresent
How often do we go through life unfocused or distracted? When you focus on living in the moment, you can appreciate the little things life has to offer, and you can also connect with people in new and improved ways.
To Be There for another person has a powerful effect. Think about how good it feels when someone gives you their undivided attention, focusing on your needs. You can be that person that does that makes the decision to be someone who is skilled at giving people your attention. It takes practise, but this is a skill you can achieve, and it will make a massive difference in the relationships in your life.
People don’t need you all the time, but when they do, they need all of you.
For many people, BeThere starts with how you listen. It means actually looking at people and shutting out distractions.
Being There and Living in the Moment allows people to let go of the past and not stress or worry about the future. We understand that people can sometimes hold on to differences for longer or choose to focus on issues that happened in the past instead of forgiving and moving forward.
This is dangerous to relationships, damages company culture, and can fracture teams. When individuals agree to not make a mountain out of a molehill or to let bygones be bygones, it connects teams and lets people get on with doing what they need to do or achieve success at work and in life.
Nobody’s perfect, of course; sometimes you have to catch yourself when you aren’t present and bring yourself back, over and over if necessary. This is a life practice and will require time and thoughtful consideration.
Bringing consciousness, body, and spirit together in the same space is a gift to yourself and to the world.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I listening to family, friends, colleagues, and customers with the single purpose of hearing what they have to say?
- Do I only listen to get what I want?
- Do I give the gift of full attention freely?
- Do you have a protocol for dealing with interruptions?
- Have you reminded yourself today of how good it feels to be listened to?
Related Article » How to Deal with Burnout
Become A Day Maker #daymaker
Make Their Day can be a big production that is planned well in advance, such as filling your manager’s office with balloons for their birthday. A government regulator did this, and the JOY and laughter was felt around the building. Who wouldn’t want to deal with a happy government regulator?
Make Their Day can be simple little things like smiling and greeting people regularly. It can be having a lighthearted conversation with someone who looks like they need to have their day made.
Becoming a Day Maker is something you can choose to do. It does take a little extra time, but it is not difficult. In the beginning, you might have to work at it. But imagine starting to write MTD (Make Their Day) on the top of each day in your daily or task list.
Add being kind to something that you want to start practising daily. It starts with you but will become contagious in a good way. Find simple ways to delight people by learning what is important to them. You can even keep a little notebook or online list of cool ideas that will make people smile. Why not call it your Smile List.
You can also set aside time in your personal life to write handwritten notes to family and friends to remind them why they are so important and special to you. If this past year has taught us anything, it is that our loved ones are so very precious and we can’t take them for granted.
Now when you are out there being a Day Maker you are of course not doing this for yourself but the benefit is that it will help to Make Your Day. Why not find a big jar and add a coin in it every time you do something special or MTD for someone. Then at the end of the year, you can treat yourself to something special. You deserve it! You are awesome!
Have fun Making People’s Days! It is up to you to choose to be “the nice one.” Watch how this can change your life for the better! Even a simple Thank You card can have a profound effect on someone’s day.
Create Your Playlist at Work #playlist
Create more play at work – but how? I find this the most interesting topic because clients contact us and ask exactly that. We want to have more fun at work but don’t know where to start.
It is not about being goofy or unprofessional but rather looking at things and situations a different way. When you allow yourself to be playful at work, you are open to more possibilities. Start to say, ‘let’s PLAY with that idea.’
When people learn to successfully integrate playfulness into their daily work routine, they are more creative and likely to enjoy work more. What manager would not want their team to enjoy work more?
Psychologists have said that we actually crave play. It’s part of being human. But what happens as we grow in our careers? Instead of becoming more skilled at play, we go to the complete opposite. This ‘All Business’ approach has a human cost: It’s not inspiring.
When people are not allowed or encouraged to play at work, they shut down and become disconnected from their work emotionally. This leads to a lack of motivation and loss of creativity.
Many people and organisations take themselves too seriously. We can be serious about work without taking ourselves too seriously. So how can you introduce Play? It starts with Trust. If you set up the foundations and create a culture of trust, people will feel more comfortable to be themselves and Play.
You can also start to BE the example of appropriate PLAY. Be aware of when you are taking yourself too seriously. Maybe start to introduce some lighthearted props or Tips. One CEO we work with has started to consult with her stuffed Pete the Perch (insert image) when things are getting challenging. She shared that this lighthearted PLAY helps her to relax and not take everything so seriously. We love these stories.
Here’s a little PLAYLIST to get you started with creating your own playful workspace.
Props
- Happy Buttons (an audio button that says only positive sayings).
- Theme dress-up days or have certain hats that you wear when doing particular tasks. We all wear so many hats in our roles nowadays. Have some fun with this.
- Introduce a game room where people can go to chill out and unwind and bond with fellow teammates.
- Office/Company mascot.
- Use colourful pens – I love my purple ink. What’s your colour of choice?
- Have positive note cards and inspirational quotes in your space.
Strategies
- Play Music in the background and ask team members to alternate their favourite playlist. This way, you learn about each person more, and everyone is involved in creating an uplifting atmosphere.
- Create a fun, uplifting way to answer the phone – It’s a gorgeous day to be happy – how can we help? The saying that gets the most positive comments by customers wins. Create fun in-person greetings to say to customers as they arrive at the business.
- Create fun job titles – our team are Director of FUN, Captain Creative, Ambassador of Happiness, and Guppy in Training.
- Tik Tok Daily Dance time – 3 pm is a tough time in the day. We may feel a little low. Boost energy with 2 minute dance time each day.
- Birthday Celebrations – this is an oldie but a goodie, and it.
- Introduce Team Trivia or invite your customers to participate in trivia online or by phone.
- Send GIFS to each other or customers – I have seen this be really successful for online chat/support teams.
- Celebrate customer loyalty with fun prizes and cards – this is also an MTD moment.
- Brighten up the workspace when it is a brighter space. It will inspire creativity and JOY.
Related Article » Importance of FUN at Work
Create your own playlist
What are the things, emotions, or behaviour you associate with PLAY? Make a list, and then look for ways to incorporate them into your daily routine.
Here’s some to get you started: (aim for a list of your top ten)
- Laughter
- Smiles
- Connections
- Games
Once you have identified it, you will see it is much easier to incorporate PLAY into your day than you had once thought. You can choose to bring a lighthearted approach to your day while still taking your work seriously.
Whether you are working remotely or in an office setting. Play is not what you do but how you do it. Bring energy and enthusiasm to what you do every day.
Celebrate Often #celebrateoften
Celebrate is described as a social gathering or an enjoyable activity. In saying that, the goal should then be to create more celebrations, right?
With this in mind, why not focus on what we can celebrate ahead of what we need to complain about.
Of course, we understand that life is not only made of events to celebrate but what if we started to look at life through the eyes of ‘glass is half full’ or ‘today is a great day, what can we celebrate.’ It is very similar to being grateful and practicing gratitude.
Why not look to celebrate each other’s strengths and differences. This is what makes us a more successful group of people.
We like to celebrate our clients and congratulate them on their achievements, and most people can relate to that, but why not look internally and celebrate your personal successes as well. Give yourself small manageable goals and celebrate often. Imagine doing that every day. You would have such an amazing list of accomplishments that could be referred to when needed. Maybe even when updating a resume or social profile.
We love the idea of creating your own “TADA” list. If you find the day has gotten away from you and you have not achieved all that you had wanted, switch your mindset and recap all that you did achieve instead. Take 5 minutes at the end of the day to create your ‘TA DA’ list and celebrate all the interruptions you handled or the solutions you found. You did it!
For example, set a goal of working out three times a week and celebrate when you have achieved this for a full month. Maybe treat yourself to a movie or buy something small for yourself. If you are looking to create celebrations at work, you can be the example and create a community celebration board either online or in the office where we can each support each other with achieving our goals and celebrate together.
We recently had friends that purchased a new unit and went through a massive renovation. Every day we visited, we celebrated each new little item that was added to the unit. This celebration went over the period of 2 months. It never got old for our friends since we were involved in their journey and cared. It wasn’t our success, but it almost became our success because we were so excited to celebrate with them.
The old saying of misery loves company is popular but definitely not one of our favourites as we are more focused on the positive. We say the Celebrations Love Company. Let’s change it up and be the person with who everyone wants to share their good news instead of the person that everyone wants to commiserate with. You will create your own reason for daily celebrations.
“Celebrate Good Times, Come’on!” Possibly one of the best songs ever!
Related Article » Why do you want to work here?
Find JOY Everywhere #findjoy
Look at life through the eyes of a child. Embrace your childlike wonder when each day. What does that mean? Imagine you are seeing or experiencing things for the 1st time, like someone that has seen or experienced fluffy white snow for the first time.
Take time to stop and smell the frangipanis or enjoy the dancing Galahs and Screaming Cockatoos. Life is beautiful, and if you choose to look for beauty, you will find it everywhere.
If you start to search for JOY, you will find it everywhere. It could be the smile on a baby’s face when he sees his dad from across the park and comes running over to his arms. Or it could be at a restaurant when you dive into your favourite Mexican burrito. (speaking from personal experience).
Most of us find it easy to find the JOY on Friday, but what if you were able to find the JOY for each day. What was JOYFUL today? When did you see JOY in action? Create a journal of JOY of all the things that bring you JOY. Carry this with you and refer back to it when you feel your JOY is low.
Where you can find JOY:
- Holding a baby
- Hugs
- Spending time with your pets
- Being outside in nature
- Soaking up the sunshine
- Getting physical
- Laughter
- Doing what you LOVE
- Learn a new skill
- Smiles
- Volunteering
Or create your JOYFUL Playlist of Music that sets the scene for you to get into your Happy Place. We are big fans of car-dancing to our favourite tunes.
Practice Gratitude #gratitude
Neuroscientists say the brain holds onto negative experiences more easily than positive ones. Therefore must work harder to install happy moments into long-term memory.
Gratitude helps us preserve the positive. It reveals the full picture of our lives.
When we focus on what we are grateful for, we see many problems are smaller and more temporary than they appear.
Studies show practising gratitude delivers physical and physiological benefits, increases happiness, and lowers stress.
Make time in your day to practise gratitude. It only takes 1 minute of your time, and we promise the flow of effect will be well worth it.
There are many ways to get started:
- You can take a minute to write down three things you are grateful for each morning when you are enjoying your coffee or caffeine of choice to start the day on a positive note.
- You can finish the day with a list of things that you are grateful for; this works wonders for people that struggle with turning off from work.
- We have heard of many families that practise gratitude together at dinner time, and each member of the family can take a turn sharing what they are grateful for.
- Make a list weekly if daily is not your thing.
- Buy yourself a journal and keep it handy so that when you need to refocus, you give yourself time to take a break from what you are doing and you add to your list.
There are no rules. This is your Gratitude Game so create it as you go, but the key is to do it consistently and with 100% focus.
After you write your list, take a moment to review it and contemplate what you would do if you did not have what was on the list anymore.
Let’s embrace each day and each other more.
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