Your Personal Happiness and Job Satisfaction are Interdependent

By Allison Berman
June 30, 2009

Career and family, family and career: I believe if you are happy in one it doesn't necessarily mean that you will be happy in the other. But, if you are unhappy in one, it can't help but impact you in the other.

I once saw a cartoon: A boss yelled at an employee...who yelled at the kids...who kicked the dog. This is a clear example of how work influences us at home and the reverse is just as true. Have you ever gotten into a big fight with your spouse right before you go to work? I would imagine it wasn't one of your more productive days.

When I went from Marketing Exec to "Chief Family Officer," I couldn't comprehend why anyone would want to hear about the monotony of my day. When asked, I rarely elaborated much beyond "uneventful," because I more or less had the same day that I had the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that.

I changed my daughter's diaper...got her muffin for breakfast...changed her diaper...got us dressed...and while we played and did errands together I stopped periodically to change her diaper. I put her down for her nap, during which I made dinner. And when she woke up, I changed her diaper yet again.

Compounding the tediousness, I was frustrated with my new "boss" (the adorable short person crawling around my dirty floor) because she didn't give me the positive reinforcement I craved. I missed getting promotions that came with raises and bonuses. For that matter, I missed getting paid in general. But most of all I missed the "atta girls." I missed them a lot.

I try to give myself pats on the back for the work I do taking care of the family. And while I learn to do that intrinsically, my husband supported my decision to find a new job where I get positive reinforcement extrinsically too through my artwork and my column. And it helps.

That doesn't mean I found a panacea. If my husband and I have an argument or my daughter has a bad day at school, it's hard to write a coherent sentence let alone an entire column. And when business is tough, regrettably, I've been known to lose my patience faster than I'd like with my family.

Personal and professional lives can't help but be intertwined, and it's easy to let problems in one bring you down in the other. Or you can learn to leverage your happiness in one, to find it in the other; it worked for me. Rather than taking my frustrations out on my family, I garnered my husband's support and invested money in painting supplies and business cards.

Now, when we take turns telling each other about days, my older daughter tells her stories, my husband tells his, and now, I have stories that are all mine to share too. Finding affirmation professionally has enabled me to better enjoy my "mommy time" and to recognize, though monotonous, there are subtle differences daily that merit stories. And until my younger daughter can tell her stories, I tell them for her, happily.

Allison Berman, an artist and mother of two, handpaints custom home accessories for interior designers and private customers. She works out of her home studio in Warwick, NY. See her collection at www.withlovealib.com. She can be reached at ali@withlovealib.com. Her column appears Tuesdays.