Hello and welcome to late summer. The days are getting a tiny bit shorter and we’re all trying to squeeze the last drops out of August before September and bursting-at-the-seams diaries are once again upon us.
This month may be a busy one for you or a chance to undo the top button and breathe a bit. Either way, it is a great time to pause and consider helpful messages to get our heads in the right place and feeling strong for the start of the autumn work term.
Holidays and work breaks are fantastic and necessary, but the effects soon wear off. So here are a few things to say to ourselves and others, useful to keep energy high and get in shape for the season ahead.
You win or you learn
It’s great to do well, walk a smooth path and have a long run of success at work. Everyone deserves that at least once in a while – but it’s not when the learning happens. We learn the most through the gnarly, tricky times, when nothing seems to go our way. So when you hit a big fat failure, take it on the chin. Life at work has a fair bit of win and lose in it, but losers are also learners. Review what went wrong, gain the views of others, put right what you need to, then learn and move on. It doesn’t feel this way at the time but you’ll look back on this period as a time of personal and professional growth that propelled you to a better place.
All feedback is a gift
It really is. Even if it is badly wrapped and seems like the present no one wants. If all we ever hear is praise, we never know what we need to do to progress to the next level. When someone praises you, thank them but also ask what you could have done even better. And ask them to be specific so you can really nail what you need to do to improve. When you’re given negative feedback, learn to value it. There will be something in the content that is of use, even if you don’t rate the delivery or the messenger. Challenge it if you need to, ask questions if lacks clarity or substance, then take it and use it in a way it will help you most. And don’t forget to thank them for the feedback – and not through gritted teeth.
This too shall pass
Resilient people are positive. Not shiny, smiley positive but sensibly positive in the way they gain perspective and look ahead. Develop the ability to influence what you can and want to change and make choices about anything you can’t change. No one can ever take away from you the right to choose your own attitude to the situation. A positive, assertive attitude will take you a long way and tends to be associated with those high-performance people everyone wants on their team.
It‘s my bad
If like us, you were born before the 1980s, “it’s my fault” is what this means. We seem to have lost the ability to step up, take responsibility and say sorry if something was our fault and shouldn’t have happened. Just doing that when you need to, helps develop strength and accountability and you and in your work culture. It allows us to own up, explain why, put things right and try better next time. It also stops us expecting to be bailed out all the time by someone with rescuer tendencies.
And there are many more sayings that convert to practical ways to grow a bit of backbone, so if that is what you feel you need for the next few months, talk to us about how you can develop a stronger self and a more resilient team. We promise to be firm but fair.