My acronym, HOVER, introduced in Chapter 1, stands for hope, optimism, value, enthusiasm, and resilience. It symbolizes looking down, surveying the situation, and then strategically tapping these five basic ingredients to create the change you need in your job and your life.
Hope is vital. Believe that you can reach your goals, and you will find a way to do so. My goal is for you to work on developing that crucial internal psychological muscle as you read along through this book.
Optimism involves taking an upbeat view of your work and your potential for success. For me, this is a core factor in loving what you do every day.
When you’re optimistic, you have a sense of enthusiasm that you can tap to take action—to see possibilities and solutions to problems at work.
This ability to have a can-do approach lets you bounce back quicker from rejection and not feel the urge to throw in the towel. It also opens your eyes to see how “you can” bring about change, not focus on how “you can’t.”
In my opinion, optimistic people tend to succeed in work and life because they’re willing to take risks. They aren’t afraid to fail because they know they will find a way to make it work and are willing to be patient and wait for it all to play out. They chip away at whatever the issue may be with the confidence that, in the end, things will improve. And with each little chip, things will improve.
One way to develop optimism is to focus on what’s going right and stop thinking so much about what is going wrong—or could. Again, I find that keeping a journal can help with this. If you notice that the same concerns, worries, and pessimistic views keep cropping up, it will help you see that you need to either make some changes or let it go. And always keep a
“good” list, or a gratitude list, as some people call it. Use your list to reset your day, every day. Be grateful.
Optimism flows from gratitude. Thankfulness is a great antidote to what ails you. Routinely take note of the things you like the most about your job.
Give yourself a moment or two to be grateful for whatever those things are.
Reach out and thank someone who does a good turn for you or made your
work shine in some way. It makes you both feel good. An e-mail is fine, but a handwritten note is always classy. The trick is to physically feel the
gratitude in your heart. It might be something as straightforward as laughing with a colleague who works in the cubicle next to you, or appreciating the nuances of the architecture of the buildings you pass on your walk to the office.
This isn’t just platitude time. Mean it, and take this exercise seriously. I try to think of at least one work-related thing I am grateful for each day. For me, it can be as simple as interacting with a colleague in a LinkedIn group, or tweeting about a story written by a respected journalist I follow that I think others will benefit from reading. Then maybe that writer will notice that I liked his story by favoriting it or retweeting to his followers what I had to say about it. I feel great when someone I respect retweets one of my online articles, too.
And so it goes. Interactions with others, even virtual ones, can get you unstuck and make you feel that someone notices you and your work. You feel valued.
There are days when I’m dazed with deadlines and I’m uneasy with the pressure. But when I pause and remember these good moments, those
negative feelings dissipate. It’s a dose of mental relief and an opportunity to push the restart button.
Value is critical. This means having the inner confidence to know that if you put out the effort, you will get results or see progress. It means you yourself value your own work and skills and talents. It means you believe in yourself. That inner compass, pulled by confidence, will help direct your actions. It’s subtle, but those around you will sense and respond to it.
One way to build your sense of value is to continually be learning new things. To deal effectively with making changes in your work life, it helps to be engaged in changing yourself. The most inventive people I know frequently get involved in learning or self-improvement efforts. It’s fun.
When you do so, everything else around you becomes more interesting.
When you’re acquiring knowledge, you notice the world around you. You spot things. You listen better. Your mind turns on.
So if you can just do one thing to make a change right now, learn something new. If you can’t make it work related, do it in the context of your life. Take a course in glassblowing or an acting class. Go on a learning vacation—a cooking school in Ireland or a wooden boat–building course in Maine. Sign up for a series of lectures at your local community center or library.
Something as simple as participating in a monthly book club can get your mind engaged.
Maggie Mistal, one of my go-to career coaches, for example, attended a jewelry-making course at Harmony Hill Farm located in South Coventry, Pennsylvania. “Though I don’t think I’ll make a career out of that talent,”
she says, “the course was so much more than that. It was exactly the boost of inspiration I needed as well as a fun, easy place to let my hair down and refocus on the priorities most important in my life and work.”
If you persistently add worth to what you bring to the job and to your life, chances are your manager or boss will take note and reward you for it.
When we feel valued both from inside ourselves and from others, we give back to others and perhaps ultimately to our employer. Everyone gains.
Enthusiasm is the intangible get-up-and-go factor that boosts your energy and helps you tackle changes both internal and external. When you’re
enthusiastic, people want what you have. They want to be around you. They want you to be on their team. Enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s invigorating.
Bottom line: Being eager to try new things and see the upside of a project can lead you to interesting assignments and opportunities that will bring happiness to your work life in ways you may never have envisioned.
Resilience, or a knack for springing back in the face of adversity or failure, is imperative in achieving happiness at work. When you are resilient, you are attuned to spotting trends and turning them into opportunities. Resilient people resist the urge to get bogged down in the past, and instead keep looking toward the future. They’re curious. They keep learning.
You can teach yourself to be resilient. You can learn to be more comfortable in an environment where nothing stays the same and the old ways may no longer work. When you gain resilience, you can create a more successful career path, and at the same time find greater enjoyment in the rest of your life.
So get your HOVER on. If you want to love your job, you will need to find ways to incorporate these qualities in your tool kit. Not everyone can put together all these pieces at the same time, of course, but it’s what you’re striving toward.