Happiness or well-being, also known as an overall positive sense of life satisfaction, is a concept of positive emotions that we all wish to cultivate and maintain. The Workplace scenario can be applied to any workplace setting as it is not limited to Social Services. The concepts can work within any aspect of life, whether in school, work, or relationships. Taking the time to evaluate requires us to reflect on our feelings and thoughts, and we can use the concepts to gain insight into why we may feel unhappy. Cultivating longevity and well-being in any aspect of life is essential as we journey through life. Some of us may find or see happiness in every aspect of our life, while some may have a harder time doing so. We can develop and foster happiness, thus longevity in the field of social services, by purposely reflecting and evaluating concepts related to happiness. (Week 2: Foundations of Happiness)

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            The concept of PERMA, developed by Dr. Martin Seligman, uses a model that can be applied in our lives to achieve a sense of happiness. The acronym stands for positive feelings, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievements or accomplishments. It can be useful to apply the model within social services in times that we are feeling overwhelmed in our daily activities. The model serves as a reminder of the impact that positive emotions can have, such as thinking more positively rather than negatively and decreasing stress. We can establish a sense of well-being by finding and remembering our passions to make life feel as if it is flowing. Through cultivating deeper connections with co-workers and service users, we can remember that we are all in this human experience together. We can create meaning by remembering our initial motivation for going to school and entering the field of social services. Accomplishments create a sense of achievement in the big successes – graduating and landing the job and the smaller ones, making a co-worker smile and providing meaningful service to the users. (Week 2: Foundations of Happiness)

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            The happiness set point is a concept that allows us to understand that we all have a unique baseline for happiness. The set point generally stays the same throughout our lives, but it can be modified through significant life events or practicing meditation. Our psychological immune system can help us adapt or change our perspectives through hedonic adaptation. The happiness set point and formula are important to our happiness because it reminds us that our happiness levels are constant; whether we have many positive events happen to us or many negative, we will generally come back to our setpoint. There are no guarantees in the world of social services as there can be many events out of our control. Remembering that half of our happiness is inherited genetically, while ten percent comes from our life conditions. Happiness can be viewed as forty percent of our voluntary choices. We have the voluntary choice to choose happiness based on the thoughts we choose. When working in the field, whether it be in the office or onsite, we can choose to make the day happy through our thoughts, actions, and reminders that we are not defined by only being and working as a social worker, rather that we are choosing to create fulfillment in our actions and purpose of work. (Week 3: Developing Happiness)

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            Negativity bias is essential in remembering that sometimes, unconsciously and through our brain's wiring, we see events as negative rather than positive. Our brain is programmed to survive and see events as negative to manage or plan to ensure the best possible outcomes. A workday can consist of many events that make us see the negative, perhaps because we have a certain responsibility or choose to see more negatives than positives. It is common for social service workers to make fast decisions based on what is available to them at the moment. It is acceptable to come to these conclusions because of memories of our past experiences. Choosing to focus on what is available can lead us to feel a decrease in life satisfaction. Happiness can be cultivated through taking some to do the work or understand an event before deeming it negative. Trying to find three positives for every negative can also shift our thoughts to be more positive. Shifting our thoughts can reduce defaulting into a negative thinking pattern and increase our positive emotions to promote happiness and well-being. (WEEK 7: Positive Emotions, Optimism & Positive Thinking)

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            Our mind and body are connected as our emotions, and our physical well-being has a reciprocal relationship. We often think being healthy means having an ideal body weight or an appropriate stable blood pressure. Biologically we need the markers to know if we are physiologically healthy. On a physiological level, our heart rate variability and our vagus nerve, which traverses all of the major organs, impact our health and happiness. By increasing our heart rate variability, we can improve our breathing, reduce inflammation, and promote happiness. By practising diaphragmatic breathing, we can improve our daily functional activities, improve our relationships, increase our positive thoughts, shape our realities, and increase our lifespans; positively improving our life satisfaction. The mind-body connection is essential for social service workers. It can lessen the workload stress, give us an activity to practice when feeling stressed (deep-breathing exercises), and improve our outlook on our workday. (Week 5: Health, Gratitude, & Happiness)

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            Practising empathy, compassion, and kindness allows us to activate the pleasure centers in our brain, and strengthen our vagus nerve, simply by having genuine empathy and compassion for others. When we feel these thoughts, we are happier and more generous, thus promoting happiness in others, which makes us feel even happier. In social services, a large part of the service aspect involves taking a genuine perspective of the service users to produce their best possible outcome. Feeling compassion for them promotes the motivation to want to help them. There will be moments that will feel as if we are only just doing our job; while it is kind, it can still promote happiness in our life while relieving distress for others and enhancing lives. Happiness and well-being can cultivate well-being feelings in all simply by doing your job or doing five acts of kindness per day. (Week 8: Empathy, Kindness, Compassion)

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            Strengths, meaning, and purpose comes from focusing on the top five character strength of you and others. Finding our passion and true meaning in life will allow us to work from a perspective of having a purpose. Choosing to have a growth mindset allows us to build resiliency and growth. Focusing on strengths promotes a sense of engagement and assists in making life feel easier simply by focusing on what we are good at. Social service workers can feel happy in the job, for the long-term, by feeling a sense of genuine connection with others, fueling your purpose to drive yourself and others forward, and transcending above the workday's superficial negatives. Social service workers have the choice in the story they choose to tell about their past, present, and future. Those stories can promote a sense of control while gaining insight. There will always be instances where service users do not see success or agencies change their policies. Social service workers can choose to create happiness in their lives by focusing on the positives of what can be controlled. (Week 11: Strengths, Meaning, Purpose)

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            Optimism is a concept that has a great impact on overall happiness and well-being. It is natural to think or blame the outcomes of events or experiences as something fixed, permanent, forever, and all-encompassing. It is also possible to view life events with an optimistic and pessimistic lens. Choosing to view life as temporary, specific, or contained can promote an overall feeling of happiness by knowing that not everything is permanent. Choosing to remain optimistic in work can increase our positive thoughts and decrease stress levels. Optimism also influences our happiness set point while activating different parts of the brain. Being optimistic has many benefits, such as choosing to view the workday or events as something for that day or something limited to just the workday. Social service workers can boost their happiness by choosing to change the way past and future events are perceived, accepting moments, and imagining the best possible outcomes. Social service workers can reflect on challenges to recognize limitations, set goals, and see them as opportunities to grow. Choosing to be optimistic in a challenging workday may not always come easy. With practice, it will feel easier through evaluating and reflecting, thus promoting overall happiness and well-being. (Week 7: Positive emotions, optimism and positive thinking)