There’s a time for praise and celebration, and there’s a time for requests, feedback, concern, criticism.
When the two get mixed, the enthusiasm quickly dies down and it just leaves a sense of unfulfillment and near-accomplishment.
Tag: problems
Best self
Your best self is not an absolute.
You can’t pretend to be at the same level of performance in all situations, under all life circumstances, whether you are relaxed or stressed, appreciated or diminished, content or sad.
So, you have to be able to look at what is the best self you can bring to the table today, right now. And you need to accept that it might be not as much as you (and others) would expect.
That’s a good step to build kindness towards yourself.
Start again
Habits are broken all the time, and when that happens, you need to allow yourself to go back a few steps.
Progress is very rarely linear, and thinking that it is, might actually keep us from starting again a healthy habit we have just failed at for a while.
If you were used to run 10km a week and you have not done that for a month, would it make it easier to start again with 2km this week?
If you are used to meditate for 20 minutes a day and you have not done that for a month, would it make it easier to start again with 5 minutes today?
If you are used to write 10,000 words a week and you have not done that for a month, would it make it easier to start again with 5,000 this week?
We are not machines and we need to be able to cut ourselves some slack once in a while.
Highs and lows
Find the strength to cherish both the highs and the lows. One would not be possible without the other, and they both have lessons to teach about who you are.
Boxes
Most companies want employees to not work in silos. And then, they organise their work in little, hierarchical boxes.
They split the workforce in departments. They assign managers and middle-managers to each of them. They give them goals and agendas and salaries and development plans that are unique. And they get mad because Product doesn’t talk to Sales, because what Marketing promotes is not the story that Customer Success tells, because the Leadership Team meetings are just a battle for budget and recognition, and because their Customers are sick of waiting for the promised improvement.
So, the opportunity for you is to become the person who looks at problems horizontally. To learn about others priorities and spot lateral developments. To become the glue that delivers and the light that shines on colleagues.
If you’ll just stick to your box, you’ll be part of the problem, not the indispensable solution.
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