Are you happy?
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Everyone wants to be happy. Happiness enhances our quality of life and productivity. Happiness keeps us healthy, both physically and mentally. But do we understand the things that lead to happiness and life satisfaction? We need to know what makes us happy, and those that detract from our happiness, especially working in healthcare where the demands of the job often negatively affect our well-being and work-life balance.
Happiness is a crucial personal aim but it is also a significant part of public health and workplace effectiveness. For healthcare professionals, who spend their lives caring for others, protecting personal happiness is not only good for them, but their increased personal fulfillment enables them to provide quality patient care.
So what makes us happy?
Research from the World Happiness Report and Georgetown University, indicates key factors that consistently contribute to human happiness :
Relationships and social connections where strong social bonds are crucial
Mental health and psychological well-being including optimism, personal growth, and emotional resilience
Gratitude and optimism which promote a positive outlook on life
A sense of meaning giving purpose to daily activities and life goals
Acts of kindness - helping others and contributing to community well-being
In fact, acts of kindness within the community provide more happiness than the absence of violent crime, absence of mental illness, or even a higher income. Kind behaviour has a profound impact on personal well-being.
Can we be happy working in Healthcare?
In Healthcare the relationship between work and happiness is complicated! Healthcare professionals face challenges that impact their well-being and work-life balance. Recent research from the CDC and Nature demonstrate that healthcare professionals experience mental health challenges and crises caused by the effect of work on their happiness. These challenges include:
High stress and burnout with long working hours leading to emotional and physical exhaustion
Workload issues related to insufficient staffing and overwhelming patient demands
Lack of appreciation with insufficient recognition for their critical contributions
Work-life imbalance leading to difficulty maintaining personal relationships and self-care, with work ‘carried over’ to home
These factors detract from the positive impacts from healthcare. Health professionals gain positive energy and happiness from good team working, the gratitude of patients, the meaningfulness of work and the opportunities to be kind. However, optimism and opportunities for personal growth may not always be perceived in the workplace, and many staff do not have the emotional resilience to cope with the challenghes of healthcare over a prolonged period.
Employers like the NHS have strategies to improve healthcare professionals’ happiness, including:
Flexible working to facilitate a better balance between personal and professional responsibilities
Better childcare arrangements
Team-building to improve workplace relationships
Stress management and resilience training
Enhancing professional autonomy to enable healthcare workers to take control of their personal and professional lives.
As an Executive Coach I believe that coaching is an essential tool for enhancing professional autonomy. Coaching identifies individual motivation and goals, looks at issues that are restricting progress and discovers ways of achieving change. Coaching may simply improve vision and motivation, but it may lead to a transformational change of direction and purpose. Employers should value and fund coaching as a means of empowering and liberating their staff.
Positive working conditions are directly linked to reduced burnout, improved mental health and higher job satisfaction among healthcare professionals. Health organisations that seek to improve working conditions for their staff, especially through coaching, will see improvements in employee well-being and, consequently, the quality of patient care.
How do we measure happiness?
Measuring happiness presents significant challenges. It is essentially subjective and can vary dramatically based on cultural background, personal values, and specific circumstances. It varies from day to day and from stress to stress.
For healthcare workers happiness is often assessed by job satisfaction surveys, burnout levels, work-life balance, and professional fulfilment. Often however nobody really seems to care! But we know when we are unhappy.
Is a Good Home Life Enough?
Poor work conditions alter our perception of happiness, even when we have a good home life. Healthcare workers with fulfilling personal relationships and good family situations will still experience reduced well-being due to workplace stress. There are several ways this occurs:
Emotional spillover where our workplace stress carries over into personal lives, affecting family relationships and leisure activities
Reduced life satisfaction, when overall life satisfaction decreases due to work-related stress despite a positive home environment
Mental health deterioration from chronic workplace stress causing anxiety and depression
Cognitive distortion where negative work experiences create pessimistic thoughts that extend beyond the workplace
The American Psychological Association found that heavy workload, insufficient staffing, and lack of workplace appreciation override the positive effects of a good home life. Despite having loving families and supportive relationships, healthcare professionals still report low happiness levels due to the overwhelming nature of their work responsibilities.
Work-life balance is not just about compartmentalising these different life areas. Workplace conditions have a psychological impact that can affect all areas of a person’s life. Organisational support and positive work environments are necessary, not just professionally but as critical components of overall life satisfaction.
Healthcare organisations must support professional development not just for operational reasons but because professional development is a positive investment in employee happiness and, ultimately, the quality of patient care.
Conclusion
There is a complex interaction between personal, social, and professional happiness. While relationships, gratitude, sense of meaning, and acts of kindness remain universal, the workplace plays a crucial role in overall happiness and well-being, especially for healthcare professionals who may lose sight of optimism and personal development opportunities.
For healthcare professionals, the challenge is complex. They must manage stressful environments, heavy workloads, and maintain their own well-being while caring for others.
Adverse work conditions override the positive effects of a good home life, and healthcare organisations must prioritise employee well-being, not just for the benefit of the employee but as a means of improving healthcare quality and patient safety.
The pursuit of happiness in healthcare is a necessity, not a luxury.
Finally
Many healthcare professionals remain committed to working in and improving the NHS, despite its recent problems. Nevertheless many are unhappy at work (and often at home) because of the stresses of heavy work loads, patient demands, poor staffing and lack of appreciation. If you are unhappy because of any of the issues raised in this article, and if you feel that work is negatively affecting your personal wellbeing and work-life balance, you should speak to an Executive Coach to help you resolve these issues.
To explore this further please book a free no obligation 30 minute on-line conversation with me here. If I am not the right Coach for you, I will recommend somebody else who might be.
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