The first alarm bell started ringing when I read a check-in form and learned my client was devastated about his promotion.
Yes…devastated, about his promotion! I could honestly feel his despair across the ether.
When we were together he presented a muddy mix of anger, fear, sadness and shame. Plus an urgent need to fix that.
You see, by this time Rob (not his real name) had performed badly in an important meeting the day after his ‘devastating promotion’. And now he felt certain the same thing was happening again – and acting as if someone else would be chosen to lead the project he felt his future depended on.
He was living with overwhelming desperation, now struggling to keep up with deliverables and feeling stuck in a cycle of doom.
I listened hard. And asked sticky questions. Eventually Rob engaged with his feelings as they arose. But nothing shifted until he finally accepted his feelings and understood they existed because he’d attached something far, far bigger to narrowly defined outcomes.
His entire future happiness relied on a fragile thread of faith – that he didn’t have control of – and meant he was ‘failing’ over and over again!
Work hard and hope is not a strategy for success.
Confidence is over-rated. And faith is sometimes blind.
While dwelling on our flaws and mistakes can dent our confidence if taken to extremes (it’s one marker of clinical depression), on the other hand, skimming over unflattering information eventually translates to misleading ourselves.
Rob’s feelings of devastation and anger about his promotion withered only once he accepted the ‘fail’, because he finally gained the perspective needed to disconnect his future-focus from what felt like a fatal career (and identity) threat.
The false belief:
My entire future is ruined by not getting the more senior promotion. Now I won’t achieve what I wanted for myself. I’m so angry they can’t see I’m the right choice, I’m now performing badly at things I’m strong at. It’s failure after failure, without the faith I felt before.
The reframed belief:
I earned a seat in the Leadership team. I can see if I had stated that as my progression goal, I’d be delighted not devastated – because I have actually been valued for the contribution I bring. This is not a fail, although my feelings tell me how much progress matters. I will move forwards with more mindful ambition than before.
Finally, Rob felt calmer and clearer.
And that calm clarity quickly let him choose how to respond more effectively to the choices in front of him.
Only now did he consider his own role in the devastating promotion. And choose his next move.
He could refuse the elevated role. He could leave. He could plan an entirely different career shift. He did none of those things.
Once presented with choices, he decided to act ‘as if’, pro-actively demonstrating readiness for leadership at every opportunity! And caught himself spotting agile opportunities to shine.
There were also valuable learnings.
He would blend with his passion and perseverance for elevation with more considered goal-setting and make sure his efforts were truly aligned with his ambitions.
The real reason this promotion had been devastating was because it went with the story that Rob would no longer achieve his long-term ambitions to thrive. Which were being neglected as long as his devastation was all-consuming bringing the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We all have times like these. We all face disappointments, criticism, stress or just hard times.
The question is, how do we respond to those sources of stress? Does our spiral of despair overwhelm us? And do we know what resources speed up our recovery so set-backs don’t set us back in the long-term.
The truth is that acceptance is one of the most powerful tools to realise our ambitions to thrive.
Because when we stop struggling against the reality and trying to change things we have no control over by sheer force of will, we can finally start focusing our attention on those things we can control.
Ourselves. Our beliefs, our thoughts and our actions.
And that’s how we choose growth over comfort. How to tie your deep hopes for the future to your reality, so your organising pathway gets easier follow (no matter how difficult things get).
I know this is not an easy concept, but accepting your fails faster will make it easier to give your hoped-for future a real shot.
Does your Inner Pessimist have a mind of its own in the face of a fail?
