Whatever You Decide to Do for Work, Make Sure It Makes You Happy
- Binny Langler
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
There's a quote I keep coming back to, and it's deceptively simple:
"Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy."
Simple. Obvious, even. And yet, for so many of us - quietly radical. At some point, most of us stopped asking whether our work makes us happy. Instead we started asking whether it pays enough, whether it's stable enough, whether we'd be foolish to leave it. Whether we should just be grateful.
I know this, because I lived it.
The Day I Realised Happiness Had Left the Building
It dawned on me somewhere in my forties, mid-way through my second career change, that I had let happiness quietly vanish from my working life.
Not dramatically. Not overnight. Just gradually. The way you stop noticing a picture that's been on the wall for years.
Work had become something I endured. A chore I showed up to. A place I stayed because it felt safe, or because the economic climate made security feel like a luxury I couldn't afford to walk away from. And truthfully, because people kept telling me how lucky I was.
"You've got a great job." " The benefits are incredible." " Do you know how many people would love to be in your position?"
And they weren't wrong. On paper, they were completely right.
But none of that is happiness.
When Did We All Agree That Work Isn't Supposed to Make Us Happy?
I'm not sure when it happened — but somewhere along the way, we collectively agreed that happiness at work is a bonus. A nice-to-have. Something for the lucky few or the wildly naive.
"It's a job. That's what it is."
I hear this all the time. And I understand where it comes from — life is expensive, responsibilities are real, and the idea of walking away from something stable in search of something fulfilling feels terrifying, self-indulgent, or frankly just impractical.
But here's what the data actually says...
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report found that only 23% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. That means roughly 3 in 4 people are either just going through the motions, or actively miserable. Gallup estimates this global disengagement costs the world economy approximately $8.9 trillion in lost productivity each year.
Let that land for a moment.
This isn't a fringe problem. This isn't a handful of people having a rough patch. This is the majority of the working world, quietly enduring.
And the personal cost? Gallup also found that people who are unhappy at work report significantly higher rates of stress, anxiety, physical health issues, and relationship strain.
We've normalised an epidemic.
The Happiness We Stop Asking For
What strikes me most, as a coach, but also as someone who spent the better part of a decade ignoring her own compass... is how quietly it happens.
You don't wake up one day and decide to stop caring about happiness at work. You just... stop asking. You get busy. You get used to it. You find other ways to fill the gap. Weekends, plans, countdowns to holidays.
And your working life becomes a waiting room.
This is what I call drift. When we look up one day and genuinely don't know how we got here. Because we never made a conscious decision to be here. We just let the current carry us.
The antidote to drift isn't a dramatic leap. It's a decision. A small, deliberate one.
To start asking the question again: does this make me happy?
You Can Design a Working Life That Makes You Happy
I want to be transparent about something: I didn't coach my way to this belief from a textbook. I arrived here the hard way. Through my own second career change in my forties, after years of fear, imposter syndrome, and a very long list of reasons why it probably wasn't the right time.
I experimented on myself first. Then I found a framework that worked — and eventually built my entire coaching practice around helping other people do the same.
Because I know it's possible. Not as a platitude, but as lived experience.
You can design a working life that makes you genuinely happy. One that draws on who you actually are:
Your strengths.
Your values.
Your dreams.
Not just your qualifications and your mortgage repayments.
But it starts with being honest enough to answer three questions:
1. Are you truly happy in the job you have right now? Not fine. Not it could be worse. Happy.
2. Do you actually want to feel happiness at work? (This sounds obvious — but some of us have talked ourselves out of even wanting it.)
3. Are you willing to do something about it?
You don't have to have the answers yet. You just have to be willing to sit with the questions.
If You're Ready to Start — Come to Career Crossroads
If any of this has landed somewhere real for you, I'd love to have you join me at my Career Crossroads: Equipping Yourself for Change workshop.
It's a live online session designed for people who know something needs to change — but aren't sure yet what, or how, or whether they're brave enough.
📅 Friday 29th May 🕛 12noon AEST 💛 $47 AUD
We'll work through some of the frameworks I use with my private coaching clients. Practical, grounded tools to help you get clarity on what you actually want, and what your next step might look like.
Because whatever you decide to do — it really should make you happy.
You deserve nothing less.
Binny
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Binny Langler is a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach and Executive Coach, and founder of The Inkling Effect. She helps people navigate career change with clarity, courage, and a healthy dose of self-belief.
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