Tag: self-improvement

Voice your state

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The next time we walk into a situation with a negative feeling (anxiety, fear, anger, shame, doubtfulness, sadness, preoccupation, …), a way to unlock the impasse is to voice our state right at the beginning.

I have had bad experiences before, this is way I am afraid and anxious.

I don’t usually do a good job when there is a deadline looming, and I now feel doubtful and preoccupied.

I was seeking support and I don’t think I have gotten it, that’s why I am angry now.

I feel quite shameful and a bit anxious in being here in front of you today.

When we do this, our feelings immediately start to dissipate, and that’s because they are not just ours anymore. They are shared.

What’s more, we set the audience for empathy, as what we are saying is most likely much more relatable than the behaviour we might manifest.

Time to leap

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When most of your time is spent doing things you were doing yesterday.

When the most common answer to ideas is “something to keep in mind for the future”.

When you get lost in planning and details, postponing what matters in search of perfect.

When you and those around you are busy, and yet that busyness does not bring you any closer to what you want to achieve.

It’s time to leap.

Following and picking

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Repeatedly, over the course of your career, you will be asked to conform to certain standards or rules.

You need to meet certain requirements to get a job, for specific roles you will be asked specific qualifications, if you get to be a manager there are certain procedures you will have to adhere to. It is normal, and that’s what makes things somewhat reliable, trustworthy, known.

The fact is, there are two ways to go about standards and rules.

The first is to follow them. If they say you have to study a certain language to get a job, you do study it. If they say you need a certificate to be promoted, you do get the certificate. If they say you have to follow a procedure to advance your purpose, you do follow it.

The second is to pick them. Does it make sense? is the key question on this path. Will study that language add something to my value as an employee? Will it add to my story and my strengths? Will it make me more frustrated, because once I am done with that role, I will never be asked to use that language ever again?

You will probably surf between the two ways at different stages in your career. What matters most though, is that you understand that there are two ways, not one only.

Once you get to know what you are here for, what your value is, what your strengths are, what you have to offer and what you don’t have to offer, what sets you apart from the rest of us. Does it make sense to follow a rule that does not serve all of this?

Patterns

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I have a tendency to get tired of things quickly.

Not that it’s always been my own choice to leave a job, yet this tendency has reflected on my professional experience so far.

For a while, I have thought that the next role, the next company, the next boss, the next team would be the “breakthrough”, the one that would stick with me and keep me motivated for long. Of course, it never was.

And so, I had to start asking some difficult questions.

What do I want? What is important to me? What would make me stick around? Why is it so that I get tired of jobs so quickly? Is there a problem with commitment? Is there a problem with purpose? Is there a problem with focus? If the choice would completely be in my power, what things would I make happen to call it a success?

When you identify a pattern and you have troubles understanding it, the absolute best thing you can do is to turn within and ask yourself some questions. It’s never the job, the people, the colleague, the managers, the roles, the tasks, the offices. Almost never, at least, and it’s a much safer bet to look at yourself in the mirror to see what you can do about it.

Influence

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Influence has a bad reputation.

We think of influence as something that is done to people, to us. We do not like the idea of having our thoughts magically changed, and so we do not like those who try to change them nor the act itself. To be fair, influence has been used by people to impose their view on others for quite some time, so no wonder we get defensive any time someone even just mentions the word.

What if, instead, influence would be an act of empathy?

If you really want to change someone’s mind on a moral or political matter, you’ll need to see things from that person’s angle as well as your own. And if you do truly see it the other person’s way – deeply and intuitively – you might even find your own mind opening in response.

Jonathan Haidt, The Rigtheous Mind