

Paul Dolan is an internationally renowned expert on happiness, behaviour and public policy. He is currently a Professor of Behavioural Science in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. He also is also the author of the book 'Happiness by Design' published by Penguin.

1. Happy stories, sad days

We all have two selves: our evaluating self, based on how we think about our lives overall, and our experiencing self, based on how we feel day-to-day. Many people pay too much attention to how they think about their job and not enough attention to how it makes them feel. Too much emphasis can be placed on whether your job has high status and not enough on whether your colleagues are a pain to work with. As a result, many of us will stay in jobs that make us miserable. If you think you like your job but find yourself complaining regularly about your daily activities – your commute, your interactions with your boss, your time spent working with Excel – it might be time to look for another job.

2. Feelings of purpose

You experience a range of feelings over the course of a day. These have typically been thought of in terms of “pleasure” (and “pain”) – good and bad emotions, like joy, contentment, anger and worry – but I think there is another important category of feelings called “purpose” (and pointlessness) – whether what we do feels worthwhile or fulfilling, pointless or futile. A happy job is one that brings of good balance of pleasure and purpose. Not only is purpose good for happiness, it has other benefits too: people who report experiencing meaningfulness on the job have better health and are more socially integrated. On the other hand, if you experience a lot of futility at work, you are likely to be less productive and make more errors. Purposeless at work is a key driver of burnout and a lack of commitment to the job. So you should look to find ways to make your work purposeful; and if you can’t, get another job.





3. Achieving what exactly?



Placing more importance on what you achieve than on how you feel getting there is a sure fire to be less happy overall. It’s great to have goals, but the process of getting there should be experienced as pleasurable and/or purposeful, too. Happiness is not like money – you cannot move it around between different time periods. Lost happiness is lost forever. So, if you aren’t experiencing pleasure or purpose in what you are doing at work, and you don’t expect to soon, consider changing what you do.





4. You have a long commute



Commuting feels pretty miserable and pointless for both women and men – worse than even housework. The more time people spend commuting to work, the worse psychological health they have. This is especially true for women , almost certainly because they still do more domestic work than men. It is unlikely that higher pay will compensate for the unhappiness of a long commute, so if your company has relocated, it could benefit your happiness if you do, too.





5. You’re burned out



Are you clenching your teeth? Restless nights? No energy for, or interest in, activities outside of work? You might simply have too many demands placed upon your time at work. In particular, people who have dedicated their careers to caring for others in stressful situations, such as emergency care nurses and social workers, are at risk of overwhelming stress and burnout—an effect dubbed “compassion fatigue”. Although caring for others can be great for your happiness, it’s okay to take a job where there is enough time left over to tend to your own happiness, too.