Day 296: Happiness and its place at work

I was having a conversation with a cohort today about happiness and success - does one yield the other, and if so, in what order? Does happiness result in success, or does success result in happiness?

I think happiness leads us towards success, and although there are some successes that make me happy, that happiness is transitory, temporary. It's a kind of feedback loop - the positive reinforcement of the success will increase the happiness overall. That leads right back into the intrinsic motivation to seek challenges and work towards success.

There are also some great non-successes (read: failures) that - over the long view - can make me happy because they eventually contribute to a future success. I have observed that many people learn best when they fail, er, struggle with a task, instead of having it handed to them on a silver platter or being spoon fed. If it was easy, it wouldn't be as much fun when you succeed. 

I had a pretty epic failure this past weekend, when I competed in my very first short-track speed skating meet. I had a terrible time in my three races, partially due to a nagging injury with my foot, but mostly due to a nagging negative attitude. I came into the meet expecting to perform horribly - so I wasn't surprised when I did. I tried to blame the injury for it all, but in reality, I had already admitted failure even before I started. My mind was not ready for me to perform the task in front of me, I had not prepared my mind (and heart) to do the work. 

I'm a pretty positive person overall - I prefer to be a positive force for change - but even I get grumpy now and then. Sometimes the storm clouds are a-rumbling and I throw a little lightning around. Sometimes it's very targeted at an individual or an incident, sometimes it's a general annoyance with the world. Usually the latter means I need a vacation while the former is an indication that there's a specific opportunity for improvement. 

I have another 6 weeks of fairly focused work ahead of me, before I can take a real break. Within that time, I have one more speed skating meet and our recertification audits. Both are BIG DEALs to me. I want to be successful at both. So it's time to knuckle down, and get on with the tasks at hand. I just have to remember to smile once in a while.