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INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF HAPPINESS AT WORK: “I’VE GOT A GOOD JOB… SO WHY AM I MISERABLE?”
It’s International Week of Happiness at Work, which means we are officially allowed to talk about something that tends to get pushed down the workplace agenda somewhere between mandatory compliance training and someone forgetting to empty the office dishwasher.
Happiness……At work.
And before you picture a corporate wellness guru making everyone sit in a circle while somebody plays whale music in the background, let’s get one thing straight.
Workplace happiness does not mean being deliriously cheerful from 9 to 5.
You can have a rubbish Monday, hate a particular meeting, mutter about your boss over your third coffee and still have a fundamentally good working life. ☕️
But what happens when you have what looks like a “good job” and you’re still miserable?
WHY AM I UNHAPPY WHEN EVERYTHING LOOKS FINE?
This is the awkward question.
You have a decent salary.
Your job is secure.
Your employer isn't objectively terrible.
Your colleagues are perfectly nice.
Your LinkedIn profile looks respectable.
And yet you’re counting down to Friday before Monday lunchtime.
So what’s going on?
A 2024 article from SimComm Academy, International Week of Happiness at Work, describes workplace happiness as involving purpose, recognition and wellbeing. It also highlights the wider impact work can have on our wellbeing, noting that full-time UK workers averaged 36.6 hours a week between May and July 2024.
That’s a lot of your waking life.
If you spend roughly 36 hours a week doing something that leaves you feeling flat, frustrated or miserable, it’s worth paying attention.
But there’s another possibility we need to consider.
Your job might once have been right for you, but it no longer fits the person you have become.
And that is a very different problem.
YOUR CAREER CAN CHANGE EVEN WHEN YOUR JOB DOESN’T
Our careers aren't static.
Neither are we.
Your priorities can change because of relationships, caring responsibilities, children leaving home, menopause, redundancy, ageing parents, financial circumstances, health or simply reaching the point where you think: “Actually, I don't want this anymore.”
Maybe ten years ago you wanted the big promotion.
Now you want your evenings back.
Maybe you once thrived on a 60-hour week.
Now you’d quite like to know what sunlight looks like.
Maybe becoming a senior leader was the ultimate goal.
And now you’ve discovered that the corner office comes with a side order of emails at 10.47pm.
That doesn't mean you've failed. It means your definition of a good career has evolved.
THE “GOOD JOB” MIGHT NOT BE A GOOD FIT
We are very good at judging careers by external measures.
Good salary? Tick.
Nice company? Tick.
Promotion? Tick.
Senior title? Tick.
Pension? Tick.
Then we wonder why someone with all those things is sitting in their car outside work eating a cereal bar and questioning every decision they've made since 2004.
Because “good” is personal.
A job can be objectively attractive and personally wrong.
Perhaps you need more flexibility.
More creativity.
More autonomy.
More purpose.
More development.
More human interaction.
Or perhaps you simply need fewer meetings about meetings about the meeting you’re going to have next Tuesday. 🙄
SimComm Academy’s article gathers reflections from its own team about what happiness at work means to them. Their answers include challenge, fun, teamwork, feeling valued, making a difference, creativity, opportunity and work-life balance.
And that’s rather revealing.
There isn't one universal recipe for happiness at work.
What makes one person flourish might make another person want to hide under their desk.
So the question isn't:
“What should make me happy?”
It’s:
“What makes ME feel engaged, valued and fulfilled?”
START WITH CURIOSITY, NOT YOUR RESIGNATION LETTER
If you're unhappy, don't immediately leap onto LinkedIn and apply for seventeen jobs before lunch.
Pause. Ask better questions. What exactly am I unhappy about?
Is it:
😵 My workload?
👩💼 My manager?
🏢 The culture?
💷 My salary?
📈 Lack of progression?
🧠 Boredom?
⏰ My working hours?
🚗 The commute?
💬 Lack of recognition?
🧭 A lack of purpose?
Or has my life changed and my job simply hasn't caught up?
These are different problems. And they need different solutions.
If your manager is the problem, changing careers may be unnecessary.
If the organisation's culture is the problem, changing employer might help.
If your role has become repetitive, perhaps you need development.
If your priorities have changed fundamentally, a bigger career shift might be worth exploring.
The trick is to diagnose before you prescribe.
Otherwise, you risk changing jobs and taking exactly the same problem with you.
HAPPINESS ISN’T JUST AN EMPLOYEE’S RESPONSIBILITY
This is important.
We sometimes treat workplace happiness as though it is entirely the employee's responsibility.
Try mindfulness. Build resilience. Take a walk. Practice gratitude. Download the wellbeing app.
All potentially useful.
But what if your manager micromanages you? What if your workload is ridiculous? What if there is no career development? What if people are expected to answer emails at 10pm? What if you aren't trusted to make decisions?
You can't meditation-app your way out of a dysfunctional workplace.
Anderson Strathern’s 2024 article, Work hard, laugh harder: Key strategies from International Week of Happiness at Work, puts some of the responsibility firmly with employers. It highlights trust and respect, work-life balance, career development, wellbeing, social connection, autonomy and recognition as practical areas employers can address.
That matters.
If you're a manager, don't just ask:
“How can I make my team happier?”
Ask:
“What am I doing that might be making their working lives harder?”
Do people have autonomy?
Do you recognise good work?
Can people take annual leave without guilt?
Do they know what development opportunities are available?
Can they tell you they are struggling?
Do you listen?
Sometimes the route to a happier workplace isn't another wellbeing initiative.
It’s better management.
SMALL CHANGES CAN TELL YOU A LOT
Harvard Business School's Arthur C. Brooks offers three practical ideas for a happier working life in his 2025 article, Three Tips for a Happier Work Life. His suggestions include cutting unnecessary meetings, focusing on progress rather than pinning all your happiness on one enormous future goal, and thinking carefully about whether leadership is genuinely something you want.
The meeting point is particularly relevant.
How many hours of your working week disappear into meetings that could have been an email?
And how often do we assume that career progression automatically means becoming more senior?
Perhaps your next career move isn't upwards.
Perhaps it's sideways.
Perhaps it's towards something more interesting.
Perhaps it's away from management.
Perhaps it's towards a role with greater autonomy.
Career progression doesn't have to look like a ladder.
It can look like a rather interesting maze. 🧭
TRY A CAREER HAPPINESS AUDIT
Before making any dramatic decisions, score these from 1–10:
⭐ I enjoy the work I actually do.
⭐ I feel valued.
⭐ I have enough autonomy.
⭐ I am learning and developing.
⭐ My workload is sustainable.
⭐ My work fits my life.
⭐ I have positive relationships at work.
⭐ I can see where my career is heading.
Now look at the scores. Don't judge them. Investigate them.
If “autonomy” scores 3, what would a 5 look like?
If “development” scores 2, what would you need to get it to 6?
If “work-life balance” scores 4, what could realistically change?
This is much more useful than simply declaring:
“I hate my job.”
Because now you have something to work with.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BURN IT ALL DOWN
Career change has acquired a slightly dramatic reputation.
People hear “career change” and imagine retraining from scratch, starting at the bottom, moving to Cornwall and opening a pottery studio.
Lovely, perhaps.
But unnecessary. 🏺
Career change can mean:
Changing teams.
Changing responsibilities.
Changing hours.
Changing employers.
Asking for flexibility.
Taking on a new project.
Developing a new skill.
Moving into mentoring.
Stepping away from management.
Or making a much bigger change.
The important thing is that you make the decision consciously rather than because you finally snapped during a Teams call about stationery procurement.
HAPPINESS IS A CAREER CONVERSATION
International Week of Happiness at Work is a useful reminder that our working lives deserve attention.
Not because work should be an endless festival of joy.
It won't be.
Sometimes work is stressful.
Sometimes it is boring.
Sometimes your inbox looks like it has personally declared war on you.
But your career should support the life you are actually living, rather than the life you thought you would be living ten or twenty years ago.
And if you have a “good job” but you're miserable, don't immediately tell yourself that you're ungrateful.
Get curious.
What isn't working?
What could change?
What is within your control?
What needs to change within the organisation?
And what do you actually want next?
Because sometimes you don't need to blow up your career.
Sometimes you need a better conversation.
Sometimes you need a different role.
Sometimes you need a different employer.
And sometimes you simply need to acknowledge that you've changed.
If you're wondering whether your current career still fits the life you want, I offer a free 30-minute Discovery Call. It's a chance to talk through what's happening, explore your options and work out what your next step might be.
No dramatic resignation letter required.
Just a pause, a bit of curiosity and perhaps a fresh look at what “a good career” means to you now. 💜
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