Feel Free at Work

For many of us, the Thanksgiving holiday is over and we’re back at work, wishing we were home eating leftovers instead. For millions of people, work is more a jail sentence than a joy, and their office cubby can feel like a prison cell. But it doesn’t have to be like this: The power to feel free at work is in our hands.

Here are eight simple tips to help you discover freedom at work, alleviating stress and misery, and leaving you feeling happier both in the workplace and out of it. Read the tips here:

We have so many choices in the workplace. We are free to:

1. Appreciate the positives of the situation, rather than focusing on the negatives.

2. Encourage positive supportive relationships that offer an important sense of connection and enhance our days.

3. Solve the challenges, rather than perpetuating them by complaining or allowing them to tie us in emotional knots.

4. Lighten up and not take our job so seriously that it interferes with the enjoyment of the day.

5. View authority figures and policies as guidelines rather than restrictions.

6. Seek additional education or training to enable ourselves to advance in our work.

7. Give ourselves breaks when we need them. . . take an occasional long lunch hour or an impromptu afternoon at the museum or art gallery. . .or even allow ourselves a whole day off once in awhile.

8. Seek another job when we feel incompatible with a situation, if we have outgrown a position, or if we would simply like to consider new opportunities.

Read more: Spirit, Guidance, Self-Help

Adapted from Work With What You Have, by Deborahann Smith (Shambhala, 1999). Copyright (c) 1999 by Deborahann Smith. Reprinted by permission of Shambhala.
Adapted from Work With What You Have, by Deborahann Smith (Shambhala, 1999).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Terry V.

6:18AM PDT on May 14, 2012

good article thanks

send a green star

LMj S.

5:10PM PST on Mar 8, 2012

great suggestions, thank you!

KS G.

4:52AM PST on Nov 29, 2011

Thanks for the article.

May H.

1:03PM PDT on Sep 21, 2011

ii q.

6:30PM PDT on Jul 8, 2011

People should be glad they have a job, instead of constantly complaining.

Robert O.

12:56AM PDT on Mar 25, 2011

I'd be freer at work if my co-workers weren't so negative or bosses so demaning and calolus and uncaring. But alas, it takes all kinds to make the world go round. Thanks.

Camilla V.

10:40PM PST on Feb 15, 2011

thanks

Stephanie I.

9:54AM PST on Feb 15, 2011

Thanks for the advice.

Bon L.

1:17AM PST on Nov 17, 2010

Thanks for the info.

C. G.

3:48PM PDT on Oct 4, 2010

interesting!