In our work with organizations, some people more than others voice questions about how happy we can expect to be in work. Everyone brings their own baselines and biases across the spectrum from robust optimism to testy skepticism.
Our capacity for all genres of happiness significantly depends on how much choice we think we have about it. The question of how happy and unhappy we want to be in our work is actually a new question for many people. Just reflecting on this simple question shifts people to a clearer sense of their own power and possibility. It shifts their locus of control from external to internal, immediately.
Once people come to happiness and unhappiness as choices, they can meaningfully learn better approaches to both. They take the lid off their capacity for bliss.