Sometimes things don’t work out - and that’s ok - as long as we learn from it
Sometimes we just have those weeks where we think everything is against us. Besides our best efforts of working hard and doing everything we can to succeed, things just seem to go the other way. It is especially painful to experience a lack of progress when we have a personality that longs for performing well, accepting challenges as well as wants constant progress and development is their life. So, how to we deal with this and how can we turn things bright again?
The first very important thing to understand is the difference between our thoughts and actual facts of what is happening around us. Are we just giving us an extra hard time for something that in our own perception has not worked out or is this the case? Are we just paranoid about consequences that have not even occurred or happened yet? Rather than being lost in a spiral of negative thoughts, we should deal with what really happens and is in front of us. Especially for strategically thinking people this is very hard and difficult, as they never really live in the moment and always think about tomorrow. However, in order not to lose our mind in eventualities, we need to focus on facts of what is actually happening and deal with things at hand today.
Another important part is to ask for support and talk about our feelings and concerns. Many of us feel shy to show weakness and self-criticism, especially in a work environment context. However, by openly talking about our struggles and raising our concerns, we are in a much better position to get support and have others to help us. Another effect of this is that we often discover that others are or have been in a similar position before, dealt with the same challenges and can therefore share experience to help us overcome those common struggles and provide valuable advice. On the other hand. If we don’t talk about it, people assume everything is fine and cannot support us. To have an open conversation about our concerns, can really help to get other involved and see what can be done.
Further, many of us tend to immediately jump to self-doubt when things are getting a bit tough. It is very easy to do that, and it is only instinct that we immediately see the fault on our side. However, in many cases this is too easy, and we tend to be very hard on ourselves here, often too hard. Self-doubt can result in a lack of motivation in the first place, and can even hinder us to learn, develop and improve. While it is good to reflect on what we can actively do to develop and progress, we should not be too hard on ourselves here. One way of doing this is to see and celebrate our achievements more. While not everything can always work out, each and every one of us has little wins we can celebrate every day. It is even good to write those down sometimes to really give our self-confidence some boost.
Not everything can always go to plan, and that is ok, we are all not perfect. However, the question is do we try to reflect, accept feedback and learn from our mistakes. We can only try our best, and that should always be enough. Also, talking to others can really help, as well as celebrating our little wins more to not be too hard on ourselves. Many of us struggle with various things and it is always better to communicate and tackle them together as a team, rather than going it alone.
