Corporate life is often not fun and easy so you might wonder, how do you enjoy corporate life?
This article is composed to help you out because I’ve listed 15 helpful tips on how you can enjoy corporate life. So continue reading!
1) Find A Corporate Job That Energizes You
The most important key to enjoying corporate life is to enjoy your job. I know that is easier said than done.
Most people feel drained by their corporate jobs. It sucks out their life energy, and when this goes on for a while, they get exhausted, and the chances of getting chronically sick get bigger. Now we don’t want to go there, so you might understand that doing something you love is essential. It is not money, but health is wealth.
If you have the luxury of choosing jobs, I highly recommend going for the job that excites you the most because the feeling of excitement is your biggest compass to find a job you love and can do for many years.
Suppose you cannot switch jobs that quickly; it is best to pull projects into your energy field that excites you. Perhaps you can make it clear to your boss that you love doing specific tasks or projects within the company that you’re not doing right now. Any boss wants to see an employee get excited about a job task and wants to assign these tasks to you. Maybe not on the first try due to corporate politics or lack of experience, but if you keep showing interest and your ability to learn, you’ll be rewarded over time.
2) Get Better At Handling Stress
“Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades. Increased levels of job stress as assessed by the perception of having little control but lots of demands have been demonstrated to be associated with increased rates of heart attack, hypertension, and other disorders.”
Stress is the biggest reason why most people hate corporate life. To enjoy corporate life better, it is essential to be better at handling stress. And here are some tips:
Create A Positive Morning Routine
“Win the morning, win your day”
The start of the day sets the tone for the rest of the day. You’ll likely experience a less stressful day if you create a stressless morning routine. Wake up earlier to get ready for the day at a slower pace. And do something for yourself (me-time) to fuel your tank, such as enjoying a good cup of coffee, listening to positive or relaxing music, etc.
Know What Is Expected From You
A big factor in job burnout is not knowing the job requirements. When it’s unclear what is expected from you or if your role keeps changing, you get stressed by constantly trying to meet changing expectations.
Know the job requirements or request what is expected from you. Only then you’re able to set boundaries.
Stay Away From Conflict
One of the biggest stress factors at work is interpersonal conflict. If you want to keep your stress low, turn on your radar for conflict and stay away from it as much as you can.
Clean Your Desk
Clean your desk before you start work. A clean desk is a clean mind. And try to be organized the rest of the day to avoid stress caused by clutter or chaotic work methods.
Make Yourself Comfortable
It might be surprising, but an uncomfortable chair or a low/ high desk can cause stress. Also, an unhealthy sitting position can tighten your neck and back muscles which gives you physical stress. Therefore, make yourself as comfortable as you can by getting the right chair, desk, and location within the office.
Focus On One Task At A Time
Multitasking is when your brain gets overloaded with too many things at the same time. It is not as efficient as working on one task at a time. It might look that way, but it isn’t. You make mistakes much more often, and you’ll feel stressed when it is not even necessary.
Try to avoid multitasking as much as possible by chunking: set aside chunks of time to focus on one specific task while minimizing interruptions and grouping similar tasks together.
Meditate
Meditation can help you slow down your thoughts and train your mind to be an observer instead of going along with every thought that pops up in your mind. this way, you’ll create a healthy space between your thoughts; within this space, you can make conscious decisions on what is a priority and what is not.
Get Moving
Exercising or simply walking at lunchtime and coffee breaks helps you to get out of your head and into your body. Moving your body is a powerful way to manage stress because it boosts your feel-good endorphins and distracts you from daily worries. Getting physical relieves stress, according to Mayo Clinic.
3) Maintain A Healthy Balance Between Work & Personal Life
Your work takes up a huge portion of your time. And when you want to enjoy a high quality of life, it is vital to thrive in your personal life to make up for anything that happens in corporate life. When you dislike your job, you need to do things you love in your personal life to maintain a healthy balance.
Make sure you don’t have a lot of obligations and appointments during off hours so you can plan as many things you love (spontaneously) and rest as much as you need to fuel up your tank to tackle corporate life.
4) Stay Away From Toxic Corporate Environments
Find a corporate job that cares about people and isn’t toxic. I know that is hard because the corporate world is often toxic and with a lot of corporate political games going on. And because many people struggle to survive, they go into survival mode, and that often doesn’t bring out the best in people and creates toxic environments. So try to keep that in mind. Everyone is trying to get by.
But some gems in the corporate world value employees, so try to discover these kinds of companies. And when you apply for a job, you can ask to test the waters for a day and feel if the company’s culture fits your standards and values before you say yes to a job.
And if you cannot switch jobs, try to avoid toxic or negative situations. Avoid gossiping, and keep a healthy distance from coworkers who show this behavior. Try not to get sucked in or stay calm and neutral when you get in a toxic situation.
5) Set Clear Boundaries
According to a recent online study: 76% of U.S. employees are currently experiencing worker burnout due to higher demands and responsibilities. Companies ask more and more from their employees without anything in return. And most employees are too afraid to say NO. That has to do with the lack of self-worth, trying to avoid conflict, and fear of losing their job.
Not many people know that when you do set clear boundaries (within reason), others gain more respect for you. And when they know your boundaries, they’ll likely take these into account the next time.
It is often the first time that is the most difficult, but it becomes easier every time you do it. Just try it and see how people will react. You’ll be surprised by how easy it is. And you’ll be able to enjoy the corporate world much better.
6) Be Honest With Grace
Oftentimes honesty isn’t appreciated in the corporate world. Advice and opinions are not often asked, and bosses expect you to cooperate instead of criticizing decisions.
But if you can be honest with grace, you’ll likely gain more respect, and people will listen to you in the future more often.
If you can show your honesty and get your point across in a way that is also beneficial for the company (in the long run), for your boss, or yourself with well-founded reasons, humility, and grace, you will go a long way.
And be honest also helps you to stay true to who you are, and that helps you to enjoy corporate life in the long run.
7) Don’t Take Things Personal
Don’t take things personally in corporate life. Zoom out and see that you’re a small piece in a big chess game.
Most of the time, money is more important than people in the corporate world. Corporate decisions are always made to make more money instead of what is good for its employees or society. And people will suck up to their boss, project assignments are unfairly distributed, etc. Accept that everyone has their own agenda and reasons.
It has nothing to do with you. It is just business. Keep this in mind, and don’t take it personally. And within that mental space, corporate life doesn’t get you as much as before. You maybe start to enjoy it more often.
8) Know Your Self-Worth
Do not attach your self-worth to your job position or your job performance. It is the worst thing you can ever do. You’re not your job. You’re a human being with a beautiful soul and many different qualities doing a job task to earn money.
If your job lowers your self-esteem, it might be wise to switch jobs or companies that do value you. Or make an effort to boost your self-esteem with other activities during off hours.
9) Stay True To Yourself As Much As Possible
I know corporate life can starve your soul most of the time. But when you want to enjoy it, you must also take care of yourself. And that means that you need to stay true to yourself as much as possible.
The corporate world is an ego-driven world that runs on fear, power, money, lack, self-serving, competition, and control and is very future-orientated. This is the opposite of your soul’s purpose and what your heart is softly speaking to you. See the image below.
To enjoy a high quality of life, it is essential for your body, mind, and soul to be aligned with what you do in the outside world. Your inner world needs to match your activities in the outside world to feel a sense of peace.
And I know corporate life doesn’t often match your heart’s voice, but it is important that your inner world aligns as much as possible with corporate life to avoid inner conflict and stress. This often means that you need to get creative and compromise on certain aspects of your life to stay true to yourself as much as possible. This will also help you stay healthy because when you run with the ego, you get further and further away from yourself, resulting in diseases and unhappiness.
10) Always Do Your Best
Stay positive and always do your job to the best of your abilities. This makes it more fun and satisfying for you, but it also builds up credit within the company, which helps you to attract more fun projects and people to treat you better. They see you being proactive, reliable, and having a positive attitude, and they want to match that frequency and give you the grant factor.
Also, it is the law of attraction and the law of vibration, which is physics. You attract the energy that you send out. When you send out positive energy, you’ll receive positive energy and create the reality that you want and vibrate.
11) Try To Be Kind (Always)
“Try being kind, considerate, pleasant to be around. You’ll not only enjoy life more, but you’ll go further, and people will treat you better.” – Joel Osteen.
No matter what corporate life throws at you, try to take the high road and be kind. That doesn’t mean people are allowed to walk all over you. You can be kind and not accept certain behavior and have clear boundaries at the same time.
As the quote above already mentioned, being kind makes your life not only more enjoyable but is also contagious. You might be able to turn the culture and energy around at the office by showing kindness in all situations.
12) Invest In Relationships
When people retire, they often miss work. And that is not the actual tasks from the job that they’re missing it is the people they miss most. Because according to many studies, people need social interactions daily to stay happy and healthy.
So why not make this interaction a lot more meaningful? Try to invest in people and get to know them better. Start a conversation, plan a fun team activity, and get lunch with someone you don’t know. This way, you’ll be able to understand each other better, and work gets a lot more fun and easy.
There is a big chance you’ll have much more in common than you think with the person (perhaps irritating you at first). And keep in mind, what irritates you about someone else is not about the other person. It is a trigger within you that is asking for attention to be healed. Often the quality you dislike in another person is a quality within yourself that needs work and growth. The other person is just a mirror showing you this lesson.
13) Stay Open To Learn
Many people get rusty after years of working in the same job position. They know the drill and disregard new ideas because they’ve seen it all. Do you know these people? Or do you recognize yourself in this?
Altough having experience is good and makes a job easier. But what makes a job more fun and enjoyable is to stay learn new things or approach things differently.
Learning is ageless. It is natural and human.
Everyone is both teacher and student in every stage of their life. You are a student because you can always learn from others. And you’re a teacher because you also have secrets, lessons, expertise, and skills that other people can learn from you. Even if you consider yourself an expert in a certain field, there are always people who know more than you, which makes you instantly their student. But there are also people who know less than you, instantly making you their teacher.
Therefore knowing this and having a humble and open-minded approach makes you a coworker others love to be around and work with. And it makes your corporate life a lot more fun and enjoyable.
14) Plan Email-Time
Emails. Yes, it is such an easy and quick of communicating. But it now has become more of a burden than a joy. The hundreds of emails people receive every day are not something to look forward to. It keeps you away from your task, and people expect a reply ASAP. And it happens more often that people are still responding to work emails and messages during off-hours.
A good way to handle corporate emails is to designate a certain time in the work day when you manage and respond to emails. This single-tasking way of working keeps the stress out of the day. And when people are used to a specific time when you respond to your emails, they don’t expect to get a reply ASAP anymore. And when there is a real emergency, there is always the phone people can use to reach you for questions or confirmation.
Using this strategy means that you need to be aware that sometimes you miss certain deadlines or opportunities during the day and be okay with it. Your sanity is much more important than anything work-related.
15) Take Back Control
Many people feel corporate life is like modern-day slavery. Someone else is deciding your working hours, your off hours, what time you eat, have coffee, approve your holiday, can go to the doctor, how well you do your job, etc.
This means that someone else has a lot of influence on your quality of life. Your life is instantly affected by the mood and decisions of this particular person that decides over you. Some people call it their boss 😉
To not feel like a slave during corporate life is to take charge of your own schedule wherever possible. And take back control of things you can control to feel more in power of your own life.
For example, when you apply for a job, have demands about your schedule, so you stay in charge instead of other people deciding things for you.
Or be on time when booking a holiday, so you have a better chance of getting it approved. Or have well-founded reasons why your idea or perspective when it comes to your working schedule/ job tasks is better for both parties.