Tag: work culture

Retelling the Stories of Disappointment

Disappointments are a part of life. We can retell the ‘stories’ of disappointment we tell ourselves to grow and move forward through them.

image depicting ways to retell stories of disappointment
  • Ankita had a look of utter disappointment on her face. Her proposal about a project had been rejected. She had worked hard for it, and although she did realise the few gaps in her work, she felt it was still good enough to be considered, with some minor tweaks.
  • Anu had been giving interviews the entire week and none of the companies she interviewed for had called back. She was starting to think if she even had the bare minimum qualifications, given the lack of positive response to her interview.
  • Adit had just been sidelined for a position, in the final round of his interview. Till the very last stage, he had been ahead but the last task gave the other candidate a major edge, which ultimately was their gain and Adit’s loss.

Do these scenarios evoke a stressful negative memory in you? We all must have faced disappointments like these or worse. A project we worked hard on didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to be. Expectations crashed. Or an interview we thought we had aced only to realise we missed out on the job by an inch. Or a professional networking relationship we had invested in, hoping the client will accept the pitch we provide utlimately, only to realise the client chose a different pitch.

Disappointments are a part of life. Professional and personal. How someone else- a person, a panel or a committee responds to our ideas, or how our ideas land in a situation is beyond our control.

What is in our control though is the story we tell ourselves. And how we use that story to progress and improve ourselves. In our earlier articles, we have talked about the power of storytelling in pitching, networking and ideating.

We can harness the power of a different kind of ‘storytelling’ in how we look at our disappointments as well, because at the end of the day, we are all telling ourselves stories about what we do.

Ankita told herself the story that her project proposal got rejected, the one which she worked so hard for, and that which she thought was enough to get accepted.

  • She can retell the story in a different way: Although her project proposal was rejected, she has this draft of the proposal ready the next time she is asked to pitch in her ideas. All she will need to do is fill in the gaps which she has spotted already. And suddenly, she feels motivated and ready with something for the next time. She moves forward through this disappointment.

Anu told herself the story that none of the companies she interviewed for have called her back yet.

  • She can retell the story in a different way: Although she hasn’t heard from any of the companies she had interviewed for as yet, she has gained so much experience in giving interviews this past week, and has her name in the databases of all these companies, and any day she may be contacted, if not right in the near future as the first preference, then as a silver medal candidate. This retelling helps her release some negativity from her mind, and also gain some confidence in her skills, which might help her to crack the next interview, who knows.

Adit told himself the story that he just lost out on the position in the last round, and another candidate edged past him.

  • He can retell the story in a different way: Although he lost out on the job, he has developed a possible network of seniors and colleagues who have actually seen him progress through the rounds of the interview, the rounds where right until the end he had been the top performer. They have seen his strengths and weaknesses. He can actually approach one of them as possible mentors perhaps. Or the visibility he gained through the rounds of the interview itself opens doors to many possibilities. Possibilities of networking, future opportunities and mentorship. Again, he moves forward through this mindset, whether it’s seeking mentorship to improve upon himself, or finding opportunities elsewhere.

Note that in any of these examples, there is no reality denied. At the same time a sense of possibility is not denied as well. It is not toxic positivity- it is looking at things as they are from a different frame of mind. It is a story that helps one move past the disappointment. It is a story that helps one to move forward.

Disappointments are a part of life, but how we frame those disappointments in our minds decides the long-term outcomes of these disappointments. Disappointments can remain stories of disappointment. Or we can retell these stories and find ways to make the best of them. We can grow and move forward through them.

The Value of Waiting

We work hard so that we may get what we want- that promotion, that raise, that prestige. But before we get there, we must wait. And waiting has value.

  • I can’t just keep waiting around for opportunities! I have to take actions!’

  • ‘I just don’t like the idea of waiting passively. You must do the work for the progress to happen. ‘

  • ‘I am running out of patience; I am tired of waiting!’

Do these statements sound familiar? A lot of us who believe in working diligently towards our goals must have thought or uttered these sentences. Presently, Rakesh was also saying these very lines to his friend Raj.

‘I want that promotion now. I put in the work, I have the merit. So why this wait? I am running out of patience, really.’

‘Rakesh, I know this will change your life, and you have been due for this long now. But things unfold at their own time, and sometimes, waiting is the best thing we can do’, said Raj, with a empathy in his tone.

‘What if it all slips away while I wait and do nothing?’ Rakesh had grown more impatient with this response.

Contrasting this attitude, Raj patiently listened to Rakesh, and responded, ‘Who said waiting means doing nothing?’

‘Then what does waiting mean?’

Raj went on:

‘Think of it this way. When you plant a seed for a tree, you water it as needed, and then you wait for it to grow. This waiting is precious, because if you over-water or under-water it or try to check again and again by upturning the ground if the seed is growing or not, it will not grow. Right?’

‘I see what you mean. Go on’, Rakesh had finally started to calm down a bit.

‘You are seeing time ‘gone’ in the waiting as a barrier. But time is actually a gift. This time will let you be prepared, so when the promotion does happen, you will be well-equipped to deal with the new responsibilities. Achieving your dreams, whether professional or personal comes with a new set of responsibilities for which you must be prepared.

‘Waiting and patience, are not simply about sitting around, passively. They are about learning to be in the now, and appreciate your journey. Have you noticed, how sometimes we tend to look back on even our most difficult times fondly? The present moment is a gift and all the time that goes in waiting is the time given to us to grow for the future.’

‘Grow for the future, patiently?’ Rakesh asked.

‘Exactly! When the time is right, you will get the promotion, and all the good things that come with it. And this is the time you give yourself the space to grow into them.’

Rakesh was now smiling, calmly. ‘That makes a lot of sense. Waiting is a gift that lets me grow into the future that my efforts are going to bring in…’

‘Yes’, Raj went on, ‘And waiting teaches you that the journey itself is as precious as the destination.’

We are often told to be patient about our efforts. Things unfold. We get to reap the rewards of our efforts, but not in our time, but at the right time.

Patience is not passive waiting. As we wait, we learn to appreciate the present as well as the journey. As the proverb goes in Hindi, ‘sabr ka phal meetha hota hai’, meaning, ‘patience bores a sweet fruit’. How will the seed lead to the fruit if we don’t wait?

You Need to Take Break even from the Work you Love

image about low battery

Have you ever had a very frustrating day where whatever you tried just never gave results?

Well, Sunny was having one such day.

He looked tired and frustrated as he was working on a coding project. Raj noticed it, and asked if everything was alright.

‘Oh no. I have been stuck on this since hours. Coding is supposed to be my passion. How would it all work if I cannot work on my passion endlessly. Turning your passion into a profession is supposed to be easy, isn’t it?

‘No, my friend.’ Raj began to explain:

‘Somehow the popular culture makes us believe that if we choose a profession we love, that is, something we have a passion for, we would enjoy it so much that we would feel we need not work a day in our lives. That is a wrong belief. No matter how much we love what we do, there will be times when we need a break, when our job will put some pressure on us. We will feel tired while working on it. We shouldn’t feel guilty about it. It is natural to feel overwhelmed and pressured with our work at times. You can choose to either let it push you forward or backward.’

There was some relief but also some guilt in Sunny’s eyes. ‘I did indeed feel overwhelmed. Been feeling so since a couple of days. So much so that I took a little smoke after years yesterday…’

‘Oh my, don’t do this to yourself!’ Raj exclaimed. He went onto explain again,

‘Don’t you remember how it used to be when we were children? Even with the games we loved to play, we would sometimes win, and sometimes lose. Sometimes we would be out of form. It is completely normal to not be our hundred percent from time to time. Don’t let the fixation to be perfect consume you and don’t take up unhealthy habits to reach an unrealistic goal.’

Finally, it all made sense to Sunny, and he said to Raj, ‘You are right. I have been too fixated on this problem, and I am letting it consume me. I think I should step back, and take a break. I will start working on this tomorrow again, anew. Care to join me for a walk to the riverfront today evening?‘

‘Of course!’ And the two friends wrapped up their work for the day and left to go for a walk in the cool evening breeze.

The anecdote above gives us some crucial lessons. Let us have a quick look at these:

  • No matter how much you love your work and your field, there will be times when you will feel tired and overwhelmed from it. You might even dislike your choice of career for those few moments or even hours! The popular saying that do what you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life is not always true.
  • That being said, one shouldn’t have extreme responses to this. Getting frustrated at a job you love doesn’t mean you should quit it, or resort to unhealthy habits or think that you made a mistake in choosing your career. Remember that the pressure, the frustration, the overwhelm are all temporary and more or less fleeting. Usually, each one of us goes through phases of easily doable assignments as well as the trickier ones.

This finally leads to the last point to keep in mind.

  • Just as a symphony of music has high and low notes, similarly, the work we do, our professional targets and aims, our working also goes through high and low notes, and all other notes in between. As the anecdote suggests, sometimes, we are in great form, and sometimes, it takes time to get on track. That doesn’t mean we are worthless entirely. Or that our love for our work is gone. Or that we will never be able to do great work again. We must remember that it is the variety of notes that makes a piece of music worth listening to- otherwise it would all be unpleasantly stuck on one note.

Understand the music that the work we love doing is, and we would be able to learn more, do better work, and have a great time working!

The Potential of Bad Days

Good days may not always provide the opportunity to show how good you are at your job. It is a well-handled bad day that could show your full potential and value.

We all have bad days. Horrible days when nothing goes as planned, and every worst-case scenario seems to be happening at the same time. As lyrics to a popular song by John Mayer goes, ‘bad news never has good timing’.

While all that is true, what is also worth thinking about is the bad days are also wonderful opportunities.

Bad days have the potential to be turned into a very good day.

Opportunities? Bad to good? How?

What is so opportunistic about that sale going to the rival company? What is so good about multiple clients giving ultimatums? What is so good about all tech glitches during important presentations? What is so great about multiple crises happening on the same day?

As a blogpost by Farnam Street points out- you are only as good as your worst day.

It is very easy to be calm, collected and feel like you have made it in life when things are going well. It is only during the times of crises, big or small that you truly get to display your skills, competence and experience. It is only during one of those days when you truly learn how much you can handle, how much pressure you can take and the incredible potential you have to overcome any obstacle.

Those bad days are the days when all the skills and wisdom you have developed over the years come in handy. On smooth sailing days, we are mostly on the autopilot mode, and in a way end up doing very monotonous and ordinary work. The bad days shake things up and force us to up the game.

Take for example this article by a writer on Medium. She was in the middle of an important presentation when the projector decided to give up. Technical glitches are out of our control at times, and can bog and demoralise even the most prepared speakers. What did this person do? She had to show some charts and graphs about quarterly profits. So, while she did the talking and added some humour in the situation by simply acknowledging the bane of a technology-dependent existence, she passed on her laptop to everyone, and by the end of her ‘presentation’, everyone had a personal view of the profits ‘thanks’ to the glitch.

It was the glitch that enabled her to be resourceful, use her wit and deliver. A smooth sailing presentation would have enabled her to simply show the quarterly profits and how good she was at her job. The glitch enabled her to show how she is not only good at her job, but how she is also good at handling unpredictable situations, how resourceful she can be and how quick-thinking she is. All those soft skills that must have been listed on the resume got their live demonstration and justification, right there.

Horrible days are not only great opportunities to showcase your true full potential and find lessons for ourselves, but also times when a shared humanity is on display, leading to lessons for others as well.   

Take for example someone, say, a fresher who may have been sitting in the audience of this person who handled the projector issue well. By acknowledging and overcoming the issue, the presenter not only showed her skills, but also showed that it is very human to encounter these issues, and there is nothing that can’t be figured out. This must have been an important lesson for the fresher, and the presenter must have proven to be a good role model. As we say, the best way to teach someone something is to model that behaviour ourselves.

It is also the worst days that enable us to value ourselves more. When we end up being productive on a day when we thought it would be impossible for us to be productive, we gain a new sense of self-respect anda rise in self-esteem. We realise what we are capable of.

So, the next time you realise that you are having one of those days, instead of getting bogged down in a pit of resentment and frustration, consider it as an opportunity to learn and grow. Consider it as an opportunity to explore the depths of your potential, resilience, and resourcefulness. Consider it as an opportunity to renew your self-belief. You might be pleasantly surprised.

How Dealing with Difficulties is Easier than Thinking about them

Accepting the reality of difficulties, and taking it one moment at a time can be a better strategy to deal with it than thinking about it constantly.

The past few years have taught us two crucial lessons which balance out each other in a harmonious way. Lesson one being: things can definitely take a turn for the worse, and the immediate lesson two being: we are resilient and stronger than we think.

Whether we are dealing with global events, or day-to-day situations at work, it is worth keeping in mind that thinking about a difficulty gives us a harder time than actually living through the difficulty. That is not to say that personal and collective losses, difficulties shouldn’t be taken seriously or that they don’t impact. The gist is that dwelling on a difficulty takes a greater toll on us than accepting the reality and doing something about it. Consider these scenarios.

-A candidate seems to have ghosted on an offer and now you are wondering how you are going to undertake the process all over again, and what are you going to tell your client! Now what?

-The person who was supposed to be your flat-mate has suddenly cancelled and now you are left with the burden of paying the entire rent. You can’t stop thinking about what you are going to do and how you are going to manage with your time of financial crunch. Having the flat-mate was part of the plan to share the burden in the first place! Now what?

-Your workload seems to be increasing progressively through the week, you don’t ever see it reducing. Plus, a colleague has fallen sick, and their part of the workload is soon going to fall on you as well. As if your own workload wasn’t overwhelming you enough! Now what?

We can go on with endless scenarios of this sort. In situations of uncertainty and difficulty, dwelling on those situations is almost never something that makes things better. Instead, what can be done is to:

Accept the reality: We are often living on edge about perceived negativity of a situations. We often feel like something truly horrible cannot ever happen to us. The truth is, it can. Situations can turn horrible and uncertain. But that is part of being a human, and we are all gifted with resilience. The sooner we accept the reality, the sooner that resilience can come to surface.

Be kind to yourself: Perhaps you think it is because of you that something went wrong. Maybe you didn’t communicate well enough, or you were a poor judge of something. Maybe yes, maybe no. Only hindsight can give us answers to such dilemmas. Whether something was your fault or not, it is worth reminding yourself that it is okay to make mistakes and learn from them. While holding yourself up to a high standard and work-ethic is a good practice, being accountable and the best version of yourself should overlap with being kind to yourself.

Take the present, one moment at a time: On the other spectrum of dwelling on what has happened, is thinking about the future (often the worse-case scenario). Living in the present, practicing mindfulness is the key here to finding the solutions. As uncertainties and difficult times fall upon us, it makes sense to pause, and think only about what the immediate next step should be. The rest, we do not know. Step one, step two. Step three and four would soon unfold and we would eventually know how step five looks like. We don’t know it yet, but we would. Soon. The beauty of living in the present, and embracing that we don’t know is that step ten might surprise us pleasantly!

Difficult people, difficult situations, uncertain times and exasperating times of ‘oh here we go again’ might follow us wherever we go. But the key lies in adapting a growth-mindset. Meaning? To embrace that reality, have a willingness to learn and grow, and to take it one moment at a time, knowing that we don’t know. Knowing that living through a difficult situation is a lot easier than thinking about it.