Learn how to be happy at work and beat those negative emotions

It's just before you hit the snooze button (again) that the black thoughts of work start to seep into your consciousness and the dreaded Monday morning feeling descends.

Except that it's Thursday and you've felt the same every morning this week. If this sounds familiar, then like 48-year-old Jessica Pryce-Jones, the author of new book, Happiness at Work: Maximising Your Psychological Capital for Success, you might have considered "shooting yourself in the foot" in order to avoid having to turn up at all.

"I was in my early twenties and I'd landed what I thought was a dream job. An interesting financial institution, well-paid and in a prestigious location. I hated every minute of it," says Pryce-Jones. "One day, trying to keep a cool head, I went for a run at lunchtime.

As I pounded round the square under the lime trees, this thought popped into my head. 'I wonder if I could get a little bit run over by a bus? Because if I could get a little bit run over, I could take three weeks out and not have to be there.' Once I'd had that revelation I knew I had no option. I had to find something else to do."

Since collecting her P45 for that early job, Pryce-Jones has held various positions (none of which she's hated quite as much).

However, the aforementioned incident sparked the idea for her Oxford-based happiness consultancy, iOpener, and her book – a common-sense read that reveals how to get more out of a job by, for instance, working out what motivates you, taking control and learning how to communicate.

She is not advocating sticking with a position that you absolutely hate, but suggesting how to make the most of a career that has gone a bit stale, or one that seems to have more "cons" than "pros".

Not that any of this involves going around grinning like a Cheshire cat, giving colleagues high-fives.

"Happiness at work doesn't mean you have to feel good 100 per cent of the time. Or that you shouldn't feel the usual negative emotions you do at work," Pryce-Jones explains.

"Those are the emotions that will propel you to take different actions to get back on your happiness track. They're not to be avoided but actively explored on your career journey. Just like the time you feel so stretched that you're not sure how you'll cope. Those are the moments that help you achieve your potential. The times that you look back at with a sense of accomplishment and achievement because you know you can deliver."

To produce her book, Pryce-Jones carried out four years of intensive research, which involved collating the results of more than 3,000 questionnaires conducted in 68 countries, as well as gaining advice from high-fliers such as PR guru Lynne Franks and director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson. "More than 80 people were interviewed for this book; from lawyers through to lamas," she explains.

In her conversations with these people, however, the author avoided using "the H word", which she admits can sound a bit hippy-ish.

"As soon as you start talking about happiness, people think you're on a silly streak, so I would just ask people about their formative experiences," she says. "I came out of all those interviews feeling so invigorated. A couple of them even made me cry.

For example, I felt really moved talking to Loren Legarda, who's standing as vice president of the Philippines in the upcoming elections there, as she was so passionate about fixing the corruption in her country."

Pryce-Jones, who presented Making Slough Happy for BBC television, was also moved by the bravery of Ann Daniels, who worked for 15 years as a bank clerk, before becoming a record-breaking polar explorer after spotting a newspaper advert saying; "Wanted: older woman to go to the Pole."

If you're looking for sheer inspiration, these interviews are helpful. However, the revelations that seem to illustrate Happiness at Work's advice best are the offerings from the less high-profile workers.

For example, there's a commonly bandied-about statistic that hairdressers are happiest in their jobs ("plumbers too," adds Pryce-Jones), as they have an "instant return" at work – in that customers leave happy and jobs aren't carried over from day to day. Perhaps farmers should be on that list too – if David Davis, a farmer from Gwenddwr in Wales, also featured in the book, is anything to go by.

"It's not an easy life but the best thing in farming is the spring when you're lambing," he says in the book. "Even if you've been up a lot in the night, there's nothing better than going for a stroll around to see the ewes with their lambs out in a field on a Sunday morning. And you think, 'I've achieved that'."

Davis may just be a good example of how working for yourself can be more rewarding. Thanks to last year's recession, those of us with bosses seem to be expected to work twice as hard as before, for less reward. There's also what Pryce-Jones describes as "survivor syndrome" – where those who have been left behind as other colleagues are made redundant suffer from extremely low morale.

Perhaps, then, all employers should be issued with a copy of Happiness at Work – statistics point to the fact that the longer our working day and the less we like our colleagues, the lower our productivity and the more sick days we take.

It's something that the author has witnessed first-hand in her consultancy job. She has also found that the most common problems are the simplest to remedy. These include low confidence among staff due to a lack of recognition, which is exacerbated when hard work isn't acknowledged. If only employers realised how fruitful staff happiness can be, perhaps they'd focus on it more intently.

If, however, you've completely given up on your job, you can gain some satisfaction from learning that not every high achiever enjoys boundless self-confidence.

"I've interviewed about 2,000 of the most successful people in the world and they have nothing in common except one thing," says Israeli journalist and author Yair Lapid in his Happiness at Work interview.

"Every successful man and woman said that they felt that they're not actually that great – but they got away with it. They hid it from the world. I think that's true of all of them, with the exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He didn't feel to me like he was hiding anything."

Happiness at Work: Maximising Your Psychological Capital for Success by Jessica Pryce-Jones, out on the 26 February, 14, www.wiley.com To discover your happiness at work quota, see www.iopener.com/ippqreport

10 steps to contentment

1. Greet everyone you see as you arrive: that way you'll feel connected to your colleagues.

2. Do something difficult. Sounds odd but everyone feels really good when they meet a challenge.

3. Put things in proportion. Instead of cursing bankers' bonuses, think instead about people who don't have jobs and be grateful for what you've got.

4. Show a close colleague some appreciation. It's all too easy to forget to thank people.

5. Think about the differences you make to others including your family just by being at work and doing your job well.

6. Make active choices about what you do and when. Composing a to-do list in an order you find important can increase your sense of control.

7. Phone a friend. It's always good to share and connect with people outside work.

8. Write down the parts of the job you really like: think about how you might get more of them.

9. Volunteer to do something you wouldn't normally do. You'll get a lot of appreciation and you might learn something too.

10. Revisit your main new year's resolution. Take one small step to progressing it.

This article was first published in The Scotsman Magazine on 06 February 2010