[R]esearch shows that you don’t usually do what really brings you joy ormakes you an expert — you do what is easy.
You are happier when you are busy and often have more fun at work than at home.
This seems counterintuitive, but I’ve been noticing this myself lately. Even when the work I’m doing is not really exercising my desired skills. It helps if the work you’re doing is being appreciated by others.
How is that possible? You spend a lot more time in high-challenge, high-skill situations that encourage flow states during work hours. You’re more likely to feel apathy during leisure time at home.
Via Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness:
…the study found that while at work (relative to home/leisure), these individuals spent a great deal more time in high-challenge, high-skill situations (that is, those situations that foster flow) and less time in low-skill, low-challenge situations. Indeed, they were inclined to experience a sense of efficacy and self-confidence during work hours but to experience apathy at home. However, when probed about what they’d rather be doing, these participants uniformly stated that they’d rather be doing something else when working and that they preferred to continue what they were doing when at leisure.
Thinking and working can beat sad feelings. But you avoid those because they take effort.
What should you be doing?
“Signature strengths” are the things you are uniquely talented at and using them brings you joy. People who deliberately exercised their signature strengths on a daily basis became significantly happier for months. […]
Signature strengths are the secret to experiencing more “flow” at work and in life. Exercising them is why starving artists are happier with their jobs.
But isn’t this a lot of hard work?
Mastering skills is stressful in the short term and happiness-boosting in the long term. […]
But maybe you’re afraid of failure. This is why you do what is easy and why your instinct is to play it safe. Fear of failure is one of the most powerful feelings. […]
Thinking about what happens to you in terms of your self-esteem will crush you — look at life as growing and learning:
“A key to alleviating depression is fostering a shift from self-worth goals to learning goals and from the beliefs underlying self-worth goals to the opposite beliefs.”
When challenged, focus on “getting better” — not doing well or looking good. Get-better goals increase motivation, make tasks more interesting and replenish energy.