Working for a boss who you butt heads with is never pleasant. In fact, surveys consistently show a top reason people leave their jobs is because of a bad relationship with their boss. So it won’t surprise you that many of my clients come to me because they want to leave a boss they can’t bear to work with anymore, even though the work may be just what they want. Below are three actions anyone can take to shift their perspective and find new solutions to workplace strife.

1. The grass is greener where you water it. Start looking for ways to water the dry, barren land of your relationship with your boss. A client of mine in a frustrating and difficult relationship began doing a regular mindfulness practice I taught her for only 10 minutes a day.

We agreed she would begin cultivating compassion for herself and others through a meditation focused on kindness. She was surprised to notice how quickly her thoughts transformed about whom her boss was as a woman, and what triggered their difficulties together.

My client’s curiosity began to open up—which toes might she be stepping on without awareness? And why wasn’t she connecting with her peers?

2. Notice opportunities to connect with others. As her stillness practice continued, my client found more opportunities for micro changes in how she could contribute positively with her boss and co-workers. She turned her attention towards learning about, and being with, her co-workers instead of looking mostly at what she wanted to develop for herself at work.

Paradoxically, as she shifted her attention to include others, she began to get more of what she wanted, too.

3. Invest in your happiness outside of work. Instead of coming home aggravated and resigned to numbing herself in front of the TV each evening. My client started paying attention to her own creative projects, learning new techniques and technology to create some of the ideas she’d been mulling.

She found she loved making art with new software she researched. Remarkably, co-workers began asking what had happened to her, and that she seemed so different at work, happier and easier to be with. Her happiness shifted those relationships at work, and with her own creativity.

Continue a regular mindful awareness practice at home, but also with others. As my client found a way to find more peace in herself she chose to look for places where she could meet others.

Daisy Swan is a mindful awareness meditation trainer as well as founder of Daisy Swan & Associates, www.DaisySwan.com, a career coaching firm that supports clients of all ages across all career paths to find and create the lives they long for.