When you’re at work, there’s going to be a certain degree of stress. It doesn’t matter if you love your job or all the people you work with. There are still deadlines. And even if there aren’t deadlines, there’s a certain amount of work to get done for which you have to motivate yourself. And even if you’re a pretty good worker and you get more praise than criticism from your superiors, nobody’s perfect. So you’re going to slip up sometimes and this might make you even more careful in the future. But nobody can visualize all possible future outcomes because we’re all human. So the best thing to do is to keep your sense of humor in difficult situations. Here are a few tips:
- Keeping Things Light: The best thing to do is to keep things light when you know you are getting into a difficult situation. If there’s a deadline coming up and everyone’s stressed out, insist that everyone takes a break every couple of hours. They can go make some coffee, check their email or call a friend. And you should do the same. Breaking the tension every so often keeps people in a good mood so that they can keep working with greater enthusiasm. It’s also a good idea to have someone on the team who knows how to break the tension with a few well-timed jokes or quips.
- Laughing It Off: What if the person responsible for a certain mistake is you? Maybe you made a terrible faux pas when talking to an important client. Maybe you got the details wrong and addressed them as “Mr.” instead of “Ms.” Or maybe you mixed them up with someone else and offered to go with them for a round of golf when they’re more interested in the opera. You can respond to these things by beating yourself up or you can respond by laughing it off. Most clients won’t give it a second thought. It’s very few who will be seriously offended.
- Quotes and Writing: Another thing you can do is surround yourself with light, funny quotes and read books which afford you at least one good laugh. Here are some funny quotes you could try: “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”—Elbert Hubbard; “To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.”—Reba McIntyre; “My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I forgot to do.”—Anonymous. Everyone’s sense of humor is different. So make sure that the quotes you choose seem funny to you. It helps to frame them and put them up or at least make one into your desktop background.
