Part of my journey through life at the moment is delving into the world of career change as I move from being a corporate lawyer into new areas of work. I was sent a link to a Happiness at Work telesummit and I thought that sounded like it could contain some good information. Over the next few days I’ll listen to the various speakers and let you know the best parts of each discussion in case you are considering a career change or simply want to enjoy your current work more.
Dr. Srikumar S. Rao is the author of the acclaimed “Happiness at work”.
He also conceived the pioneering course “Creativity and Personal Mastery” which has transformed the lives of thousands of executives and students at many of the world’s leading business schools like Columbia, Berkeley, Kellogg and London. Srikumar has worked with executives of dozens of leading companies including General Electric, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft. He was a contributing editor of Forbes, Financial World, Success and an executive at Warner Communications, the Continental Group and McGraw-Hill.
His main points are:
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Positive thinking isn’t always the most effective strategy. He said instead of making lemons out of lemonade simply rephrase your thinking so that the lemons themselves aren’t labeled as bad in the first place. Take the negative emotion out.
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Positional view of happiness, i.e. I will be happy if my in laws move to Australia, is flawed. It’s important that we each understand how to let go of the if-then model that keeps us unhappy and realise that happiness is innate to each of us. To do this involves letting go of our goals and invest in the process rather than the destination. I’ve written about not getting too attached to your goals before.
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In terms of people wanting to change career and leave the rat race his thoughts are to focus on who you want to be instead of what you want to achieve. After over a year off work, and a lot of personal development work, I agree with him although I know if I’d heard that while I was stressed and working long hours I would not have been so open to the idea.
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If your focus is on the negative elements of your job this can drain your passion for other areas of your life. Refocus on the positive elements of your job (including the fact you have one!) and over time you will find your energy returning. This has been my experience completely – I’m not saying its easy, simply that it works. Dr Rao has been there too. He used to think that there were two categories of people at work; those who hated their jobs and those that merely dislike their work. That made me laugh!
For more information on Dr Rao go to Are you ready to succeed?
The next speaker is Barney Wee; one of Singapore’s most innovative Neuro Linguistic Programming trainers and founder of Mindtransformations.
