Why You're Miserable at Work... & What to Do About It! | Shadé Zahrai

1. 0:00 – 0:44

   Why work misery is so common (and costly in hours)

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai0:00

      Life is too short to be unhappy. We've all heard that before. We agree with it, right? So then why are so many people miserable, especially when it comes to their work?

   2. SPSpeaker0:09

      I love my job.

   3. SPSpeaker0:10

      You hate your job.

   4. SPSpeaker0:11

      I love my job.

   5. SPSpeaker0:12

      You're miserable.

   6. SPSpeaker0:13

      I love my job.

   7. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai0:14

      The average person begins working at age 21 and retires at, say, 65. That's a career that spans 44 years. If we assume a 40-hour working week, that's over 91,000 hours. That's a lot of hours to be miserable. I love my job. I love my job. Looking to the research, there are some interesting findings which help to shed some light on why working misery is so common. In this episode, I'll share with you the two which I see very often, followed by four simple practices to shift

2. 0:44 – 1:15

   Cause #1: The success–happiness fallacy ("I’ll be happy when…")

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai0:44

      your gears, change your mindset, and feel happier today. Finding one is based on the success-happiness fallacy. We all seem to think that the more successful we are, the happier we'll become. We seem to prescribe to a belief that sacrificing our happiness now will lead to greater success, and this will bring about even greater happiness in the future. So we say things like, "I'll be happy when I finally get that promotion, when I get the new job, when I buy the new house, when I get that business going." And by doing this, we make our happiness

3. 1:15 – 2:15

   Achievement addiction and the arrival fallacy

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai1:15

      contingent on achieving something that hasn't happened yet. And here's the thing. This belief that we'll finally be happy when, fill in the blank, is a complete myth. In Dr. Emma Seppälä's book, The Happiness Track, she describes what she calls the never-stop-accomplishing flaw. The idea here is that you stay continuously focused on getting things done. To achieve more and to stay competitive, you've got to move quickly from one to-do to another, always keeping your eye on what's next. I call this the unfulfilling treadmill of achievement addiction. Now, in our goal-oriented society, this desire to achieve goals is often a powerful motivator that drives achievement, both personally and professionally. But we never seem to be able to achieve that happiness that's supposed to accompany the achievement of the goal. So we work really hard, we finally achieve it, and then we think, "That's it? Why doesn't it feel any different? Okay, on to the next one." Why do we keep doing this? It's commonly known

4. 2:15 – 2:41

   Cause #2: Overwork equals overstress in an always-on world

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai2:15

      as the arrival fallacy, a psychological thought trap that high achievers are all too familiar with. We just seem to set new goals, bigger goals, goals that are supposed to make us happier, but they never do. So we keep falling into this trap time and again, only to find it still doesn't work. Finding number two, overwork equals overstress.

   2. SPSpeaker2:39

      I don't have time for this today.

5. 2:41 – 3:11

   Productivity guilt: why rest can feel “wrong”

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai2:41

      We have all used this excuse at some point, right? And more often than not, it is entirely true. We live in a world where we are always on, always connected, always accessible, always distracted. Email, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Slack. It's all pervasive, and it's becoming increasingly more difficult to escape from its all-encompassing grip. It's everywhere. Here's a question for you. Do you ever feel guilty when you're not productive? It actually has a name. It's called productivity guilt, and it's a mindset of feeling bad when you're not

6. 3:11 – 4:12

   Evidence that long hours backfire (without improving recognition)

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai3:11

      creating, achieving, producing, or working hard. You might have intrusive thoughts about how you wasted your time, you're not good enough, or you're a failure because you didn't do enough, and so you don't deserve to take a break. In the 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies, author Sarah Green Carmichael shares that regardless of our reasons for being overworked, it doesn't help us. It doesn't make us more productive, nor result in increased output. So we work more, but we don't seem to do more. In fact, Boston University's Erin Reid found that managers couldn't even tell the difference between employees who worked 80 hours a week and those who worked much less. So it's not helping us. It's not helping us be noticed, be accomplished, achieve what we need to achieve. And we know from evidence that overwork and the stress that comes with it actually hurts us. It makes us unhappy. It makes us feel overwhelmed. We're less likely to perform to our level of ability, and it impacts our physical

7. 4:12 – 4:42

   Practice 1: Give yourself permission to be human (name emotions to tame them)

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai4:12

      and mental well-being. So here are four evidence-based practices that you can easily implement to make you happier now. First, give yourself permission to be human. Accept that you're going to experience emotions, even negative ones. Acknowledge them when you do. As psychiatrist Dan Siegel puts it, "Name it to tame it." Science proves that labeling emotions in this way reduces activity in the amygdala and increases activity in the prefrontal cortex, allowing for greater rationality.

8. 4:42 – 5:12

   Practice 2: Simplify—do less and focus on one thing at a time

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai4:42

      Think of it like this. Emotions are like data. They provide us with information, and then we process and interpret that information to decide what to do with it. Second, simplify. Do less. Focus on one thing at a time. You might be the kind of person who often feels overloaded with information or tasks to the point that you struggle to focus, and then you procrastinate through seeking more information. And while it's completely overwhelming, you keep doing it. You keep taking on more. You keep consuming more. Now, if this sounds

9. 5:12 – 5:42

   Infomania + FOMO: the hidden drivers of overload

   1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai5:12

      like you, well then, my friend, you might have infomania. It's not a clinical diagnosis, but it's been described as an excessive need to seek information. And coupled with FOMO, or fear of missing out, it means that you're constantly grabbing what you can because you don't want to miss a thing. But in doing so, you miss out on living, on being present with family and friends. You miss out on all the good stuff. So instead of trying to multitask endlessly, instead of taking on more and more, instead of moving on to the next self-help book or jumping onto

10. 5:42 – 6:13

    Practice 3: Tune into the good stuff (benefit seeking + 3 good things)

    1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai5:42

       the next podcast, prioritize and focus on one thing before moving to the next. It will serve you so well. Third, tune into the good stuff. This is all about consciously taking time to acknowledge and recognize the good stuff in your life. In psychology, it's called benefit seeking, and science proves it's very effective. In a 2005 study headed by the father of modern positive psychology, Martin Seligman, the researchers asked people to acknowledge three good things every day. What they found was that those people

11. 6:13 – 7:14

    Practice 4: Be of service—why generosity boosts happiness

    1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai6:13

       who regularly thought of good things showed higher levels of gratitude, higher levels of happiness, and even less depression over that six-month period. And four, find ways to be of service to others. In a study from a number of years back, participants were given up to $20 to spend on others or to donate to charity. Another group was given the same amount but to spend on themselves. Which group do you think was happier? The group who bought things for others or donated to charity had a greater spike in happiness compared with those who spent it on themselves. So the idea here is that service to others, acts of kindness and generosity, make us happy more than buying ourselves material things. So when you're feeling down, see if there is something you can do for someone, whether a family member, a friend, a coworker, someone suffering. It's the triple whammy. Not only do you get this wonderful burst of oxytocin, the person you help gets their own shot of oxytocin, and anyone who sees you doing it also gets their own shot. You literally create

12. 7:14 – 7:45

    Closing: You can control attitude and expectations about success and happiness

    1. SZDr. Shadé Zahrai7:14

       ripples of happiness. So that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that there's something from here that you can implement immediately to kickstart your journey towards greater happiness and greater success in work and in life. Because here's the reality. You control your attitude. You control the expectations that you hold around success and happiness. It's up to you to make a difference. I'm Shadé Zahrai. I'll see you next time. [outro music]

Episode duration: 7:47