We finally moved into our new house and are adjusting to unpacking and setting up where everything goes. Probably the hardest part for me has been adjusting to a new kitchen. Trying to remember which drawer has the measuring cups, where are the coffee cups, or trying to remember where the pots and pans are. But after four days I am learning.
With all the stress of the move one aspect that I appreciated was the moving company who moved our big furniture pieces. To save money we moved most of our boxes ourselves. For our furniture we went with a local moving company. I know my limits and would rather trust our large pieces to professionals.
Observing the movers in action; loading the truck in Brownsville and then unloading in New Braunfels helped me to appreciate their skill and hard work. I also started thinking about work attitudes. The movers worked as a team and I sensed a positive spirit between them as they joked with each other. From shrink wrapping our couch and recliners to wrapping up my wife’s dining room hutch they took care in what they did. I mentioned to one of the movers how well they worked together and that they appeared to enjoy their work. He went on to tell me about a three story move once, where they were bringing down a large marble furniture piece and the owner seeing them in good spirits said to them. “Shouldn’t you be cussing carrying such a difficult piece?” His response was how would cussing and having a bad attitude help in moving a large marble furniture piece?
He is so right a nasty work attitude does not contribute to excellence in work. Jessica Pryce-Jones in her book Happiness at Work says of work attitude: “Bad attitude is bad news. Because it is more often a cause for downfall than failing to do a job well…” Bad attitude spreads negativity throughout the workplace. It affects a person’s motivation to do an excellent job and then can affect the motivation of those around them. This results in poor work results and complaints of boredom as the bad attitude worker is not open to learn new ways to improve their work.
A positive work attitude is like the movers I observed. Dedicated to being careful with the customer’s belongings, working energetically even in difficult situations. We had a one story house which is nice for movers but the morning was very hot so they were sweating profusely. They sure appreciated the bottles of Gatorade we picked up for them at the Stripes Gas Station.
Reflecting over their hard work caused me to reflect on my work attitudes. In my work life my hardest days were when I fed into negativity. These days would cause a downward spiral affecting work performance and my life outside of work. Thankfully those days have been few and far between as I have mentioned before from a spiritual standpoint as a Christian, I try to keep a God focus in my work. I try to do my work as pleasing to God first and then secondly for the customers I serve; which for the past 10 years has been helping College students succeed in their lives.
The moving experience helped me to see all types is work is important. To have a better work experience an attitude check is a must each and everyday.
Reflection:
Reflect over your work experience. Do you primarily carry a positive or bad attitude in your work experience? Write down a couple of ideas how can you improve your work attitude by “kicking it up a notch”, as the Chef, Emeril Lagasse , used to say on his Food Network show?
Showing posts with label Jessica Pryce-Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jessica Pryce-Jones. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Self Efficacy and Happiness in the Workplace
With work taking up a large amount of our daily living I am always interested in how to keep work moving at a more than ok level. So I was intrigued at coming upon a book entitled, Happiness At Work: Maximizing your Psychological Capital for Success by Jessica Pryce-Jones. She is CEO of IOpener, a human asset management consulting group. In the future I will mostly likely touch on many of the topics she brings up in the book but today I want to look at a concept in her chapter on Confidence concerning Self-Belief. Another term for this is self efficacy.
Self efficacy is the internal feelings and beliefs we hold about we how can do at different tasks and knowledge. How capable do we believe we are. Albert Bandura the noted Psychologist known for his work on self efficacy defines it this way,” self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” This is our capacity to believe in ourselves which is important in our work life to make the most out of our time in the workplace. If we believe in our ability our work will flow much easier and we will have higher levels of satisfaction in what we are doing. It is also an impetus to keep us growing in our skills.
A big enemy of our self efficacy is “I can’titus”. It is the sickness that tells us we can’t perform as well as others. I can’t do this project. I can’t be creative in my work. The I cant’s bring stress to our work and drags out each work day. That is when the ball and chain feeling begins to overtake us.
By building up our self belief we can have more success on the job as we will reach our goals and perform better on our projects we do at work. We will be able to expand our possibilities more at work by creatively seeing new ways to help clients and customers. Creativity and skills levels grow when we have a positive belief about our capabilities. This allows us then a higher level of happiness in our work.
Some things that can build our self efficacy levels are to keep growing in our work skills. I can chant all day long that I believe that I am a great with my computer skills. Yet if all I know about the computer is how to push the power button my self belief statements are to no avail.
So be a lifelong learner, attend workshops, read up on journals and research in your work field. Attend conferences that relate to your work. Keep persistent in the difficulties of your work until you reach success. Don’t have a give up attitude but a keep on going and growing attitude. Learn from other co-workers. Don’t be an island, instead appreciate what others who work with you are doing, Also learn more about self efficacy to build up your levels of it. A professor at Emory university has a wonderful website full of information on the topic: www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html
Check out the informational articles there on this important subject.
Our beliefs affect our job performance and the quality of our work experience. As stated in the past since we work about 80,000 hours in our lifo we want to make the most of that time instead of dreading that time. SO it is important to build up our self efficacy.
Reflection:
On a scale of 1-10 one being low and 10 high what is your level of self-belief about your work capabilities. Journal about a growth area you can improve on in your work life. Take the time to go to the emory website above and read up on self efficacy.
Self efficacy is the internal feelings and beliefs we hold about we how can do at different tasks and knowledge. How capable do we believe we are. Albert Bandura the noted Psychologist known for his work on self efficacy defines it this way,” self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.” This is our capacity to believe in ourselves which is important in our work life to make the most out of our time in the workplace. If we believe in our ability our work will flow much easier and we will have higher levels of satisfaction in what we are doing. It is also an impetus to keep us growing in our skills.
A big enemy of our self efficacy is “I can’titus”. It is the sickness that tells us we can’t perform as well as others. I can’t do this project. I can’t be creative in my work. The I cant’s bring stress to our work and drags out each work day. That is when the ball and chain feeling begins to overtake us.
By building up our self belief we can have more success on the job as we will reach our goals and perform better on our projects we do at work. We will be able to expand our possibilities more at work by creatively seeing new ways to help clients and customers. Creativity and skills levels grow when we have a positive belief about our capabilities. This allows us then a higher level of happiness in our work.
Some things that can build our self efficacy levels are to keep growing in our work skills. I can chant all day long that I believe that I am a great with my computer skills. Yet if all I know about the computer is how to push the power button my self belief statements are to no avail.
So be a lifelong learner, attend workshops, read up on journals and research in your work field. Attend conferences that relate to your work. Keep persistent in the difficulties of your work until you reach success. Don’t have a give up attitude but a keep on going and growing attitude. Learn from other co-workers. Don’t be an island, instead appreciate what others who work with you are doing, Also learn more about self efficacy to build up your levels of it. A professor at Emory university has a wonderful website full of information on the topic: www.des.emory.edu/mfp/self-efficacy.html
Check out the informational articles there on this important subject.
Our beliefs affect our job performance and the quality of our work experience. As stated in the past since we work about 80,000 hours in our lifo we want to make the most of that time instead of dreading that time. SO it is important to build up our self efficacy.
Reflection:
On a scale of 1-10 one being low and 10 high what is your level of self-belief about your work capabilities. Journal about a growth area you can improve on in your work life. Take the time to go to the emory website above and read up on self efficacy.
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