Making mistakes is inevitable. It’s how we recover from these setbacks that impacts our well-being and job-satisfaction.
Whether you’re a creative entrepreneur navigating your first launch or a seasoned executive guiding a team of go-getters, you’re gonna make mistakes. It’s an inevitable part of the human condition, something we’re all destined to experience. Every person you know and admire has felt similar pangs of UGH WTF AGH when putting something new out into the world, and while you’re special (af!), you’re not the first or last person to share that sentiment. It’s how we recover from these setbacks that impacts our well-being and job-satisfaction.
Here are four ways to stop being so hard on yourself at work.
1. Consider the Context
Zoom out for a second, take a 10,000ft view.
Sitting in the hot hot heat of discomfort is hard, but if you can slow the disparaging declarations for a second and put this event, this encounter in the larger context of life, you’ll likely find it’s not career or life threatening. Putting problems into perspective can help us see it for what it really is: nothing but a blimp on the radar of a resplendent life.
2. Notice the Narrative
Think about the voice that dominates your inner-dialogue.
The voice that plays on loop when you begin to doubt yourself is unconscious and automatic. The good news? Just because we think something doesn’t make it true!
Taking a second to notice if our inner narrative is unproductive or irrational helps create distance from these cognitive distortions, giving us an opportunity to adopt a new voice, a new tone, one we might use to speak to our friends or our beloved pets.
3. Reframe the Relationship
Remember you are not your work.
Work is something you do, not something you are. No matter how much you love your job, no matter how invested you are in your work, it ain’t you, boo. Separate your income from your identity by revisiting your purpose, your values, and your unique vision for yourself. You’re bigger — and always have been — than this job.
4. Celebrate the Small Things
Write down what went right (iPhone notes encouraged).
When we’re feeling frustrated and caught in a critical loop, our mind tends to gloss over what did go well, and these wins are easy to discount when you can’t see them. Writing down our little victories (no matter how miniscule the win or short the list) helps remind us that the small wins are still very real successes.
