The beginning of the year is exciting if you’re a 7 year old starting school, for senior professionals in their career, not so much. Even if you’ve enjoyed a good break with friends and family over the festive season, returning to work is usually accompanied with a weight of the workload that’s waiting for you. And you don’t need to hate your job to feel that way.

Project challenges from last year most likely haven’t gone away, the industry outlook is iffy, and the miserable weather that the UK is currently experiencing doesn’t help one bit. Yet we’re expected to dive into the new year with optimism and enthusiasm. Easier said than done!

There’s always pressure to perform better in the new year and progress. Often much of this pressure is what we place on ourselves. Perhaps it’s time to cut ourselves some slack and focus on what’s important. Creating workplaces that are productive, building relationships that enhance teamwork, innovating more effective ways of working. Sometimes it’s the small changes that can have the most impact.

This is especially important when considering well-being. It’s a term that’s bandied about in HR circles and placed in company policy documents. But in reality, few companies get it right. Workplace well-being is not just about games rooms or garden lunchbreak areas. Personal well-being is also not about employee gym benefits. The simple truth is that people are happier and more productive at work when they feel valued. Perhaps this should be the starting point for beating those back-to-work blues.

Take the time to identify what value you and your team bring to the company and also considering ways in which that value can be grown. This approach has you naturally focusing on what is positive, what you can do, and what you do well. Without even actively trying to motivate yourself, you’ll find that you naturally feel more positive about work, especially when you start to brainstorm the ways in which you can your team can grow the value that you generate for the company.

It’s a simple truth that what you choose to focus on, influences how you think about situations. If all that’s talked about is what’s going wrong, it hardly inspires positive behaviour. Yes there may be the negative motivation that things need to change, but it’s not going to get your team excited about finding solutions. Choose to focus on value and see the difference it can make.