Being happy at work: advice from a psychologist

Many of us ask ourselves the question: am I happy in my job? What if I changed? Social networks are full of testimonials from people who have changed their lives. Ditch his life as a banker to become a shepherd in the Larzac? To take stock and make the right decisions, let’s listen to the advice of Véronique Kohn, a psychologist in the Montpellier region.

The article below is the transcript of the video embedded in this article.

The indispensable condition? To know itself

Being happy at work? I must already know myself. Knowing who I am, what my tastes are, my natural talents, what I am made for. We talk a bit regarding vocation. What does it mean to me to be happy at work? There’s going to be the notion of pleasure: as long as you don’t have enough taste for doing what you’re doing, it’s going to be heavy. And how do we know when we are well? It is that there is fluidity. That’s to say ? We are not overworked, we are not too exhausted, we do not create states of exhaustion at work, that means that we know how to set limits too. So we alternate with times where we take some distance. We don’t just work, and when we’re in the middle of work, it’s better to do passion jobs.

How do we know when we are well? It is that there is fluidity. That’s to say ? We are not overworked, we are not too exhausted, we do not create states of exhaustion at work.

Get out of logic: I need it to live

I’m not saying it’s always possible, but if it’s possible that I get out of this space “I need to do a job just to make money because I have to put myself in safety. ” SO we begin to be able to ask real questions. Can I still focus on tasks or jobs that are made for me?

And that means thatwe come out of the fear of running out of money. It’s very clear if I’m afraid of running out of money, then I’m going to stay. I will stay in positions or in trades that don’t really suit me, but often because I don’t know myself. I don’t trust myself that I can do anything else that would be right for me.

I often say “I don’t know my talents”, but sometimes I don’t know myself at all. “I haven’t had time to explore, or else I don’t believe in myself.” I don’t think I’m capable of doing a job where I might make money doing something that I enjoy. It’s very common. And so, suddenly, I keep myself in positions ultimately by default.

Default choices that don’t necessarily make me happy because it’s more like I constrain myself in there. I don’t have so much fun. So we can pretend Oh yes, but still, I have fun. I am autonomous where I work, I have a lot like that. I finish early, I can do something else and in the end it’s not bad. But we tell each other things and in fact, it’s not so true.

Listen to the symptoms of imbalance

We feel it because our body signals us. Symptoms are always there to show us what is excessive. There is an imbalance, so what is this? And how do I organize myself to go into these excesses? Until we see it, we are not aware of it. Either we turn to the symptoms and we try to solve the problem without having really brought to light.

What agitates us the symptoms? It’s restlessness. I got agitated, I overdid it ten times, I got agitated. So what is organizing this commotion? There is contraction, somatizations that will appear, sleep disturbances. That means that our job doesn’t suit us that much.

The “I do too much to be appreciated” syndrome

Or there is something else where we have a job that we like. But we’re not happy at work because our way of managing work, our relationship to work is not healthy. We get too stuck on it, we demand too much of us, we want to do too well, we have too many expectations, too much recognition. And so, suddenly, we have a relationship that is not healthy.

We are not relaxed enough in relation to work. Work is all the same “We, at school”, we do the same thing. So it’s our relationship at work, it is our relationship to hierarchical authority, therefore to our parents. But there are our teachers, but also our here is how we were students and how you want to get good grades. We saw our parents being loved, etc. Things that replay like that from childhood, it’s important to examine and see how we can stop putting so much pressure on ourselves that if possible.

And then doing jobs that are fun and in the task, so it’s easy to say, but concretely, what does that mean? It’s while I’m performing a task. Can I find pleasure in it? What can I do to find pleasure and relax a little inside the task? If I can’t recharge my batteries in certain tasks. Suddenly, I will live as constraints as constraint. And if I force myself too much, I pressure myself too much. At that moment, I will increase in stress and then I will see. I will end up somatizing I will explode in flight.