This episode is part of the Happiness Reset at Work campaign, where Klaudia introduces you to 5 drivers that contribute to building more satisfaction in our careers so that you can reconnect and re-energise with your work in 2025. 

The 5th and final driver of happiness at work is Mastery.

Mastery in the workplace is about engaging in tasks that align with our strengths while continuously seeking opportunities for learning and growth.

Klaudia explores the importance of utilizing our unique talents to find purpose and satisfaction in our work, highlighting that employees who leverage their strengths are significantly more likely to thrive.

She warns against two common traps: believing there’s nothing left to learn and focusing solely on learning without applying that knowledge.

Hello Happiness seekers. My name is Klaudia and you are listening to the Happiness Challenge.

Across January, I'm releasing three short episodes for each driver and in those episodes I bring you the science behind each Dr. With a set of reflective questions, some hands on ideas to implement in your working life, and a piece of expert advice.

Follow me on LinkedIn and join my new substack newsletter to receive a summary of each driver and also to get free tickets to a webinar on the science of Happiness at Work that I'll be hosting in February. Frankly, it's a nice chance to sign up.

And finally, if you would like to dive deeper, join my new masterclass program online to build your individual action plan to create more fulfillment and impact at work.

There are only 15 places available and you can sign up@happinesschallenge.co.uk courses and in this episode we dive into the final driver of Happiness at Work Mastery. If you've been following this campaign from the beginning, well done. You're almost there. So mastery has two components.

It's about engaging in work and tasks that align with your strengths while simultaneously seeking out opportunities for constant learning and growth. So let's start with strengths.

When we have opportunity to apply our unique talents and abilities at work, we are not just fulfilling tasks, we are experiencing a sense of purpose and satisfaction because we can see we have a positive impact. And also we see that we are good at something.

And studies show that employees who reported high and regular strengths used at work are 18 times more likely to flourish at work. They are more engaged, more productive, more satisfied.

And actually consider this, when you doing something you are good at, you are more likely to lose track of time, feel energized, produce high quality work and this sense of flow boosts our happiness day to day. Now let's talk about the second part of mastery Learning and growth.

My favorite topic of all because in today's fast paced work, learning new skills is crucial. Things are changing all the time and we need to be enhancing our skill set.

Engaging in that continuous learning doesn't just keep us relevant in our field, it also reignites our passion for work because we can see progress, create new ideas, implement new innovative solutions. And all of that happens because we learning. It's also about that fulfillment that comes from overcoming challenging and mastering new skills.

So now to truly reap the benefits of mastery, we need to engage those two components, not only one or the other. There are often two traps that we can fall into with the mastery. The first trap is we believe that there is nothing else for for us to learn.

So it's a quite common mistake that sometimes we are so good at applying our strengths, we are great at our job, we we very much making a real impact. We are an expert on top of our field, but we believe that we have reached the learning ceiling.

So we think there is nothing more for us to learn at work. And so we don't even look for learning opportunities and we don't even consider different ways of working.

And as a result we can feel that we stagnating within the with the role. And again if that trap is in place and we fall into it, we won't be satisfied at work.

And trap two is about us feeling that yes we learning but we not having the impact we are after.

So in the trap we are very much concentrating on learning new skills, we innovating, we're building connections but we don't allowing ourselves time on applying what we have learned to solve business problems. So we constantly learning a lot and we see that but we feel we are not having an impact on or making the progress we wanted.

And again, even though we are growing, we are not having time or opportunities to apply that learning. So again we might not be satisfied in our role. So not to fall into any of these traps.

It's important to balance the application of our strengths with the learning opportunities. So to think deeper about mastery. I very much encourage you to reflect on the following coaching questions.

What feedback did you receive about your contributions at work last week and how are you planning to act on it? What one skill or strength have you used to solve a challenge or a problem at work? What are your transferable strengths?

So think about what skills help you to get your job done rather than what do you do in your job? Specifically, which strengths would you like to use more in your role? And what did you learn last week at work?

Or what would you like to learn next week at work? Thank you so much for listening to the Happiness Reset at Work campaign.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends or colleagues who might find it helpful.

If you are up for learning more about how curiosity can accelerate our learning at work, listen to episode 108, stay curious at work with Stefan Van Hoyden. I hope to see you at the next episode 146, where I will share practical hacks for learning more often at work. Until next time then.

Let's continue to strive for mastery and fulfillment in our work lives. See you soon. Bye.