"The secret to vocational fulfillment is not always found in a better job, or a more impartial supervisor. Sometimes the only thing you need to change is your attitude. And, as cognitive psychologists have long demonstrated, attitude can be significantly influenced by where you choose to focus your attention. What we think shapes what we feel, at least as often as the other way around." - Lit

"1. Direct your gaze along the following positive lines and see if it helps you to develop that (yes, it's saccharine, but it's also powerful) "attitude of gratitude." 2. Review the sweet spots of your day. A physician so frustrated by managed care and malpractice that he brooded daily about escape eased his professional struggles with a positive trick of the brain. "Every morning when I start my internal rant against the ridiculous requirements of my new practice group, I force myself to STOP and picture one patient I feel I helped the day before. That soothing image brings my stress level down enough to get through another day." 3. Whether your best moments are central to your job description (you manage a team and management of any kind brings out your personal best) or peripheral to it (you organize the office softball team, including the T-shirt design), take the time to notice the moments in the day when you feel like your best self. Flash on that mental image in a clear and vivid way several times a day. 4. Cherish the social support. However grand the mission of a war, warriors report that they fight on behalf of their unit buddies. So it is in the office. Whether we are making the widgets or selling them, we are in the marketplace fighting alongside our buddies. Their friendship, success, and our own contribution to the overall cause are often the best reasons to come to work. Take a minute to remind yourself. 5. Appreciate positive parenting. If your work is a place where you can continue to develop, and if you've got a boss who bothers to show you the way, then you have a surrogate parent long past the time when most of us are left to flounder on our own. Good mentoring is not always easy to take, but it is definitely reason to cheer. 6. Perks count, too. If you work in a pretty place, if they throw in baseball tickets, if you can bring the baby or the puppy to the office so all the parts of you are under one roof, if they give a swell holiday party or take a relaxed attitude towards facial hair or sweat suits (and you are partial to facial hair or sweat suits), then count it as a blessing. 7. Finally, foremost, the money. Hallelujah, you are working for the money. Frankly, that's why they call it "work" and if you are being reasonably well paid, you have a very good reason to love your job. While this should be immediately obvious, you may find that your appreciation of a salary and benefits has gotten lost in the public promotion of other, higher, reasons to value your job. Bliss is, after all, a tough act to follow. " - Lit