Why the Long Face?

Stop feeling bad at work. Who does it serve?

Now, I know that many people have good reason to be upset at work. Often, working is unpleasant! However, a good mood can help us to work better and it makes our non-working time better.

Let’s go over three quick tips on how to feel better while you’re working.

1. Make the most of your breaks. Personally, I like to do some deep breathing when I’m stressed or in a bad mood at work. A few minutes of focused, mindful practice can make a big difference in resetting myself when I’m down. To effectively deep breath, you should give yourself at least 2-3 minutes and breath slowly with your eyes closed. While you’re breathing, you should focus only on your breath. If you are unable to clear your mind, keep forcing yourself to focus on your breathing.
2. Small, easy to accomplish goals can give you a lift. Many times when I was working in difficult sales positions, I would struggle through periods of times when I was not on a hot-streak. It would get difficult to feel inspired. By setting small goals, I gave myself things to work towards that would help me get out of the dry spell. This can be applied to various different positions and will help you feel more positive about the things you can more easily accomplish.
3. Minimize interactions with negative coworkers. This is a huge tip and it can be a bit difficult depending on who is negative around your work. Yet, negativity is contagious and some people thrive on transferring their negative feelings to other people. If you shutout these people making you feel worse or even engage with them knowing they want you to feel bad, you can improve your mood greatly.

Now, there are all sorts of reasons people might be down at work. Yet, for simple attitude problems, one can do a lot to change their orientation towards coming into work.

When you feel bad at work, your work suffers and your time off suffers, too. It just isn’t worth it.

Remember, working well is a lot about attitude. For people in performance based roles, attitude can make the difference between making a sale or not making a sale. For people in regular roles, it can be easy to think that our attitude doesn’t matter as much but I wager at work and at home, it’s having an impact on your life.

Go ahead and try one of these tips next time you’re feeling down or stressed at work. Of course, none of this is a substitute for true help during a situation involving a deeper issue like mental illness or abuse at work. Yet, for many of us, these things might be the small push we need to return to a more effective approach to our daily tasks.